INTRODUCTION. XV 



they now bestow on some tropical family displayed in a 

 single glass-house. In a word, there is not a garden of 

 any kind, even in the suburbs of our great cities, in which 

 they may not be grown and enjoyed. And I venture to 

 promise every person who makes himself a garden of alpine 

 flowers that, more than of any kind of garden he has ever 

 seen, he will say of it, in the words of Jerrold — " A garden 

 is a beautiful book, writ by the finger of God : every flower 

 and every leaf is a letter. You have only to learn them — 

 and he is a poor dunce that cannot, if he will, do that — to 

 learn them and join them, and then to go on reading and 

 reading. And you will find yourself carried away from the 

 earth by the beautiful story you are going . through. You 

 do not know what beautiful thoughts grow out of the 

 ground, and seem to talk to a man. And then there are 

 some flowers that seem to me like overdutiful children : 

 tend them but ever so little, and they come up and flourish, 

 and show, as I may say, their bright and happy faces to 

 you." 



No attempt has been made in the following pages to repre- 

 sent the living beauty or colour of any of the plants. That 

 could only be done worthily at a vast expense, and in a work 

 very different in plan to this. To give a few figures, coloured 

 as they now generally are in books, would convey no plea- 

 sure to those who have seen the vivid hues of alpine flowers, 

 and give those who have not no idea of their beauty. The 

 aim of my illustrations is to endeavour to show how the 

 plants may be grown and enjoyed in various positions. 

 Where alpine plants occurred on any of the little scenes 

 illustrated, they have been rendered, for the first time on 

 such a small scale, I believe, with great fidelity, by Mr. W, 

 H. Hooper, who drew and engraved nearly all the illustra- 



