62 
THE HEART OF A GARDEN 
keynote of his famous sonnet; but, although their 
chiefest colour is blue—blue of summer seas, of summer 
skies, of the mist on Surrey hills, turquoise, sapphire, 
lapis-lazuli; blue of those small, strange gods that one 
finds among the cerements of the dead of ancient Egypt, 
tout le lyre , in fine, of that exquisite dye—it is by no 
means their only wear. Besides the almost innumerable 
variations played upon the one sweet air, in forget-me- 
not and rose, the fine colour-chords of lavenders and 
lilacs, imperial purples and rare violets, all harmonised 
to absolute perfection, we also have this delightful 
flower clothed in palest clouded amber, and, again, in 
soft, golden-eyed white, “ wands of ivory tipped with 
gold for awful kings.” 
And yet, despite their beauty, the austere vice-regent 
of my garden looks askance at all this lofty magnificence. 
Tastes differ, he is magnanimous enough to allow, and 
here we are cordially agreed. I, for example, have 
nothing but sheer aversion from the huge, bloated and 
blotched calceolarias that he would dearly delight to 
honour—but for my determined opposition; while he 
would give a warmer welcome to my delphiniums were 
they only dwarf varieties, and—in need of more assidu¬ 
ous attentions. 
Dwarfness, Difficulty, and, in parenthesis, I will say 
also Doubleness; these be your gods, O Gardener! 
And, indeed, I wish you joy of them; for never, “ though 
a* the seas gang dry and the rocks melt wi’ the sun,” not 
ever will they be mine. No matter how ill-favoured 
the nymph may be—and even the flower-world has its 
Truitonnes—if only her constitution be sufficiently 
