THE LITTLE NATIONS
I knew a fine specimen of the English abbé when I was at school in Hereford. This was Dr. Duthoit, Prebendary of Consumpta per Sabulum in Hereford Cathedral, Rector of St. Owen's, bookworm, and, chiefly, rose-grower. He was a middle-aged man when I was a little boy; but he suffered me to walk with him in his garden sloping down to the Wye, near the pleasaunce of the Vicars Choral, reciting sometimes the poems of Traherne, which he had in manuscript, sometimes alluding darkly to the secrets contained in Lumen de Lumine, but for the most part demonstrating his progress in the art of growing a coal-black rose. This was the true work of his life, and nearly forty years ago he could show blooms whose copper or crimson tints were very near to utter darkness. I believe that his ideal was never attained in
103
