ere on the
printed page of "Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and the
roar of London unite and mingle therein for those who do not bring the
exacting eye of superiority to this most human book.

EDWARD GARNETT.

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FOOTNOTE:

[1] Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th, 1903.

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AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR

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AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.

CHAPTER I.

AMARYLLIS found the first daffodil flowering by the damask rose, and
immediately ran to call her father to come and see it.

There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe
Oaks. I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very
bush. There are many grand roses, but no fragrance--the fragrance is
gone out of life. Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look under
the shade of the trees for the old roses, but they are not to be found.
The dreary nurseries of evergreens and laurels--cemeteries they should
be called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of taste--are
innocent of such roses. They show you an acre of what they call roses
growing out of dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,
which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call for damask roses--wouldn't
pay to grow they. Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be cut every
morning and fetched by the flower-girls for gents' button-holes and
ladies' jackets. You won't get no damask roses; they be died out."

I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper, that with
patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from
farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste
for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which
is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there
is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place,
because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The
plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden"--it is about as wide as
the border round a patch, old style--is quite vacant, bare, and contains
nothing but mould. It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.

Not only are there no damask roses, but there is no place for them
now-a-days, no "home," only villas and rented houses. Anything rented in
a town