IM FRUHLINGSGARTEN 
29 
indeed, that you might well ignore the ungainly name, 
and fall to thinking that the horns of Elfland may be 
near akin to these. 
I think I shall never again be quite such friends with 
Lenten lilies as of old. Spring has turned traitor to 
them this year in so long delaying their disclosure; and 
now that I view them, fresh from the sight of their 
betters, their skimp proportions and too rigid limits of 
expansion seem almost niggardly. They should have 
opened earlier, while still one’s heart responded easily to 
small mercies. Yet on the primrose bank, between the 
shining, rich, green tufts of spears that herald the wild 
grape-hyacinth, they look well enough. 
Towards the single Star Narcissi one’s sentiments are 
quite otherwise, for every succeeding spring makes the 
heart grow fonder of them, and every autumn one buys 
more. Apart from their frail and dream-like loveliness 
and their infinite variety—and I could not, for the life 
of me, say which kind I should choose if choice were 
narrowed dowu—they have other most admirable virtues. 
You may buy them mixed and not “ to name,” and still 
fare every jot as well as though you had searched the 
florist’s price-list with all the diligence in the world: 
and, thus purchased, their price—which is, decoratively 
speaking, far above rubies—condescends with a rare 
graciousness to even the shallowest purse. Then, again, 
where the year before last you found, say, two or three 
starry blossoms, this year a whole constellation shines 
from the grateful grass. They have the charming habit, 
so rare in things desirable, of free and bounteous increase. 
My gardener, naturally, views them with approval so 
