for} 
bo 
FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS, 
marigolds, and I stole and munched a flower, and was 
lost in the admiration of contempt for the people who 
could put such trash into soup, whether for flavouring, 
beautifying, or any other purpose. My father, being 
a florist to the backbone, would not tolerate a common 
marigold, and so I had to play the thief to gain the 
knowledge of the comparative worthlessness of marigolds 
in clear ox-tail. Within a few weeks of writing this I 
have had to judge at a flower show where the study of 
French marigolds occupied me nearly an hour to award 
the prizes-to my satisfaction. What a stride! But Provi- 
dence gave me years to accomplish it, with enjoyment at 
the beginning and the end and at all the intermediate 
stages. To stride over marigolds, beginning with soup 
and ending with the fine arts, is not a particularly noble 
business, but one might do worse; one might be M.P. 
for Battle Bridge, for example, or confessor to the pirates 
of the Mowery Land. When the churchyard marigolds 
enraptured me I had not read Shakespeare, but I call to 
mind now his association of them with the grave in the 
fourth act of “ Pericles ”— 
Enter Marina, with a basket of flowers. 
“ No, I will rob Tellus of her weed, 
To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues, 
The purple violets, and marigolds, 
Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave, 
While summer-days do last. Ay me! poor maid, 
Born in a tempest, when my mother died, 
This world to me is like a lasting storm, 
Whirring me from my friends.” 
The marigold is a very important flower to the senti- 
) 
mental. “As the marigold to the sun’s eye,” so is any- 
thing you like to speak of for its constancy. The marigold 
