A SECRET OF THE CHARM OF FLOWERS 159 



ways, is confusing to those simple natural 

 feelings which flowers in a state of nature cause 

 in us. 



I confess that gardens in most cases affect me 

 disagreeably ; hence I avoid them, and think and 

 know little about garden flowers. It is of course 

 impossible not to go into gardens. The large 

 garden is the greatly valued annexe of the large 

 house, and is as much or more to the mistress 

 than the coverts to the master ; and when I am 

 asked to go into the garden to see and admire all 

 that is there, I cannot say, "Madam, I hate 

 gardens." On the contrary, I must weakly 

 comply and pretend to be pleased. And when 

 going the rounds of her paradise my eyes light by 

 chance on a bed of tulips, or scarlet geraniums, 

 or blue larkspurs, or detested calceolarias or 

 cinerarias — a great patch of coloured flame 

 springing out of a square or round bed of 

 grassless, brown, desolate earth — the effect is 

 more than disagreeable : the mass of colour 

 glares at and takes possession of me, and spreads 

 itself over and blots out a hundred delicate and 

 prized images of things seen that existed in 

 the mind. 



