196 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



And I thought, as I went rushing down the 

 Northern Line, what a joyous, genial day it had 

 been. Personally unknown to my coadjutors, we 

 had been from the moment our hands met as the 

 friends of many years. So it is ever with men who 

 love flowers at heart. Assimilated by the same 

 pursuits and interests, hopes and fears, successes 

 and disappointments — above all, by the same thank- 

 ful, trustful recognition of His majesty and mercy 

 Who placed man in a garden to dress it — these 

 men need no formal introductions, no study of 

 character to make them friends. They have a 

 thousand subjects in common, on which they re- 

 joice to compare their mutual experiences and to 

 conjoin their praise. Were it my deplorable destiny 

 to keep a toll-bar on some bleak, melancholy waste, 

 and were I permitted to choose in alleviation a com- 

 panion of whom I was to know only that he had 

 one special enthusiasm, I should certainly select a 

 florist. Authors would be too clever for me. Artists 

 would have nothing to paint. Sportsmen I have 

 always loved ; but that brook, which they will jump 

 so often at dessert or in the smoke-room, does get 

 such an amazing breadth — that stone wall such a 

 fearful height — that rocketing pheasant so invisible 

 — that salmon (in Norway) such a raging, gigantic 

 beast, — that, being fond of facts, my interest would 



