EARLIER FLOWERS 



There are, I fancy, peony enthusiasts who exist 

 from one June to the next but who may be said 

 really to live only in that lovely month. It is 

 easy to feel a sympathy for this group on first 

 seeing that great peony Therese. There is a deli- 

 cious generosity of form in this fine flower which 

 first commends it to the eye. It is built on large, 

 bold lines. Its petals, from the simple, imfrilled 

 guards to the incurving ones of the crown, are all 

 simple and fine in outline. The color is a cooler 

 pink than that of Galle, but as pale, and the cen- 

 tre of the flower has a suggestion of cream-white. 

 Never have I so admired a peony on sight. It 

 has an enchantment of its own and one which is 

 indescribable, this fair, pale flower. Those broad 

 silken petals, that noble contour of the whole 

 bloom, its faint perfume, give it a high place among 

 the members of its fine companions in beauty. 

 The peony, in the illustration opposite page 90, 

 is, I think, M. Jules Elie; but the real reason for 

 publishing this picture is to call attention to the 

 lifting of the eye, from grass to flower, from flower 

 to trellised arch, and thence to the boughs of a tall 

 elm. Here is a little composition in living things, 

 not planned, but with an interest of its own to 

 those who watch its growth. 



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