Flowers and Gardens
lose sight of the individuals in the masses, though bewildered by the multitude of their claims. And there is the same variety in some of the Rhododendron-covered uplands of Switzerland, whose effect in its kind more nearly resembles what our gardeners desire.
This constant revelling in a blaze of colour, without any proper relief, begets an indifference to the simple wild flowers, which seem tame and insipid to eyes that have been injured by excessive stimulus. Now none can have a healthy love for flowers unless he loves the wild ones. In a garden the plants are kept in well-behaved restraint, but we must watch their ways when they are wholly free, when each can choose the home it fancies best, and root and wrestle for existence there, disposing of its flowers and branches with the utmost possible carelessness of all other interests than its own, yet somehow producing an effect of almost perfect harmony and peace. And under no circumstances need our wild flowers seem insipid to eyes that are rightly trained. I had a Foxglove on the table last summer whose bells were dropping, when there came in a little bunch of Geraniums and other greenhouse plants. My first
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