Flo we rs Loved by Great Men 



I— DICKENS AND THE GERANIUM 

 By Lora S. La Mance 



THE scarlet geraninm is big and bold, 

 and its popularity never wanes. Miss 

 ^^anc3dsh critics are horrified at this. 

 'Tis a gaudy flower, they say, and a bed 

 of it is "a blot of crude color upon the 

 landscape." This verdict need not disturb 

 common mortals. Let us have our gay 

 geraniums and enjoy them. At least we 

 are in good company. Charles Dickens 

 was extravagantly fond of this flower, 

 which could never be too red or too gay 

 for his liking. He used to say that, when 

 he went to heaven, he wanted to see all 

 the angels wearing scarlet geraniums. 



Dickens' works teem with allusions to 

 flowers, but his tastes in floral matters 

 were characteristically "Dickenesque." He 

 loved what he called "Jolly flowers." He 

 hated primness and stiffness, thorns and 

 prickles. Even the beautiful hyacinth, 

 because its flawless bells are arranged in 

 formal precision along its stalks, was pic- 

 tured by him slightingly as the typical 

 plant in the window of unlovable, hypo- 

 critical Miss Charity Pecksniff. He took 

 delight in picturing grim and hateful Mrs. 

 Pipchin's pet plants, ^^Half-a-dozen speci- 

 mens of cactus, writhing around bits of 

 lath, like hairy serpents ; another specimen 

 shooting out broad claws, like a green lob- 

 ster : and one uncomfortable flower pot 

 hanging to the ceiling, which appeared to 

 have boiled over, and tickling people un- 

 derneath with its long green ends, remind- 

 ing them of spiders." 



But of his beloved geranium he wrote 

 with a tenderer pen. It was common, and 

 he believed in the merit of that which was 

 common. It was "jolly," to use his own 

 term, and he liked jolly plants. It was 

 bright, and he liked bright skies, bright 

 eyes, bright birds and bright flowers. 

 When he pictured Miss Tox, the humble 

 worshiper afar off of the great Mr. Dom- 



bey, when he shows her utter desolation 

 when Dombey marries Edith, he pictures 

 her despair by the neglect of her flowers 

 in the window, letting a geranium die for 

 lack of care, as though fitting that this 

 flower of hope and life should wither with 

 Miss Tox's hopes. 



Dickens thought "David Copperfieid" 



DICKENS, WHEN HE WROTE "'.DAVID COPPERFIELD" 



his masterpiece, and is said to have frankly 

 owned that, in David, he pictured himself 

 with his own likings and ways. So we are 

 not surprised when he makes his heart's 

 hero visit the greenhouse with Dora, with 

 whom he is madly in love. "It contained 

 quite a show of beautiful geraniums," he 

 says. "We loitered along in front of them, 

 and Dora often stopped to admire this 

 one or that one, and I stopped to admire 

 the same one, and Dora, laughing, held 

 the dog up, childishk\ to smell the flow- 



