ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY THE GIFT OF ISABEL ZUCKER '26 PI Cornell University J Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924051782989 MOEE POT-POUEEI PEOM A SUEEEY GAEDEN MOEE POT-POUEEI FEOM A SUEEEY GAEDEN BY MES C. W. EAELE FOURTH IMPRESSION LONDON SMITH, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATEELOO PLACE 1900 [All rights reoeiyed] 'Beading good Books of Morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case ; but the best Eeceipt (best, I say, to work and best to take) is the Admonition of a Friend ' Bacon TO THE EEADERS OF •POT-POUEEI FEOM A SUBBEY GAEDEN' I DEDICATE THIS BOOK CONTENTS 8EPTEMBEB PAOK Heasons for writing another ' Pot-Pourri ' — Advice of friends — Criticisms grave and gay — Keturn home after three months abroad — Disappointment with dry garden— Kingfisher — Sedum sjpectabile and insects — Gardening — Cooking . . 1 \ OCTOBER Gardening — Echeverias — Ignorance about bulbs — Gossamer time and insects — The East Coast — A new rockery — Oxalis floribundaas a vegetable — Previous ' Poi-Powrris ' — Cooking receipts, various — Journey to Frankfort in 1897 — Cronberg — Boecklin's Todten-Insel — Jewish Cemetery — Goethe's house — Staedal Art Institute — German treatment of tuber- culosis 46 NOVEMBER Present of ' The Botanist ' — Echeveria and Euphorbia splen- de^is — Cowper on greenhouses — Cultivation of greenhouse plants — Bookseller at Frankfort — Dr. Wallace on Lilies — Eeeeipts — Winter in the country — The sorting of old letters 85 DECEMBER Lonely evenings and more papers— Figs from France — Horn- beams and Weeping Hornbeams — Wire netting round small fruit-trees — Damsons — Eoman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus — Effect of coloured glass on plants — Use of corru- gated iron — Lord Lyndoch — Cultivation of Mistletoe — A list of plants — Anniversary present-giving — Christmas decora- tions — Acetylene gas — The old learning to live p.lone — Ileceipta 118 viii MORE POT-POURRI JANUARY 1899 PAGE Difficulties of growing Daphne indica — Journey last year to Ireland — Cutting down and re-planting trees— Apples — Skimmed milk — Manure heaps — Winter Honeysuckle — Botanical Gardens in Dublin — Botticelli's drawings — Tissot's Bible — Bippingille's patent stove — Blue flowers — ' Snowdrop-time ' — ' The Sun-children's Budget ' — Floral notes from ' The Scotsman ' — Receipts 152 FEBBVARY Mistresses and servants — DifiBculty of getting servants — Girls instead of boys — Eegistry Offices — The employments that do not take up characters — Early rising — Baron Humboldt — Coverings for larders — Blackbeetles — Children's nurses — Ignorance of young married women — Some natural history books — Forcing blossoming branches — Horticultural Show — Letter from San Moritz — Eeceipts 1S4 IIAECB Confessions about diet — Cures for rheumatism — Effects of tea- drinking — Sparing animal life a bad reason for vegetarianism — The Berlin foot-race — Mrs. Crow in Edinburgh — Bagehot on luxury — A word about babies — German and English nurseries — Sir Eiohard Thome Thome on raw milk — The New Education — Difficulty of understanding young children — Gardening — Cooking 21G APRIL Newspapers on cremation — More about Suffolk— Maund on flowers that close — Asparagus growing on the seacoast Peacock feathers for firescreens — Dining-room tables Petroleum tubs in gardens — Neglect of natural history Cactuses again — Old mills — Mr. Burbidge on sweet-smelling leaves— Florist Auriculas— Seed-sowing — Kitchen garden Poultry ... 2G9 CONTENTS ix MAY rAOK The ' French Sugar Pea ' — The ' Westminster Gazette ' on Tulips — The legend of the Crown Imperial — Article on ' Sacred Trees and Flowers ' — Peeling of Poppies — Cooking receipts — Books on Florence — Mr. Gladstone on travelling — Journey to Italy — ^Arrival at Arcetri 301 JUNE What I saw from my window at Arcetri— Fireflies — Cypresses^ Youthful memories in the ' Casoine ' — Deodar in Cloister of San Marco — FSte at Santa Margharita — Villas — Gardens — Want of colour in Tuscany at midsummer — Slight allu- sion to picture galleries — The cabinet of Cardinal Leopoldo di Medici — June 24th in Florence — Botanical Garden — Silence of birds and summer sounds 329 JULY A night journey — Dawn in the train — Passing ChambSri — A water-cure near Geneva — Amiel and his ' Journal Intime ' — The New Museum at Geneva — M. Correvon's garden — An afternoon at B&le — Boecklin again — Cronberg and the ' Palmengarten ' — Planting shrubs to secure an especial effect— The cultivation of Alpine Strawberries — Eeceipts , 3G7 AUGUST A Horticultural Show in August— The old Chelsea Physio Garden — Towns out of season — Flat-hunting in London — Overcrowding flats — Marble better than tiles — Curtains and blinds— A long note on girls and young women . , .394 INDEX 439 MOBE) POT-POUEEI SEPTEMBER Eeasons for writing another ' Pot-Pourri ' — Advioe of friends — Criticisms grave and gay — Beturnbome after three months abroad — Disappointment with dry garden — Kingfisher — Sedum specta- bile and insects — Gardening — Cooking. September 1st, 1898. — It is now a year and a half since I finished my first book, and the public have been almost as appreciative and generous in their praise of it as my nieces were. Kind letters of all sorts have poured in, and I have been overwhelmed with suggestions about the future, and what I should or should not do. Some have said — and I admit that these, in all friendliness, are the most earnest in their heartfelt appeals — that I should rest on my laurels and write no more. They urge that a second book always falls flat. If on the same subject as the first, it is generally a failure. If on a new subject, it is apt to be outside the writer's experience. And then they quote several incontestable examples which jump to the recollection of everybody. I really agree with this view of the case up to the point of not acting upon it. Nothing can ever bear being done a second time. This is one of the sadnesses of life, and I do not for a moment anticipate that No. 2 can please in the same kind of way as did No. 1. The method not being new, my readers will know pretty well what to expect ; and this, probably, B 2 MORE POT-POURRI ■will immensely sharpen their critical judgment. Then there were those who said and wrote — and need I state that they are the flatterers who come most home to the author's heart, as is but natural ? — ' We have read your book ; we hke it ; we have found it useful and helpful, entertaining or suggestive. Cannot you give us more ? ' To these I answered : ' Give me time and I wiU try.' The result was that throughout the last year I have been making various notes about my life, things I saw and things I did, exactly as they occurred. These very likely vdll prove less interesting than former notes, which were more or less connected with the life that was behind me. One newspaper had it that I must have a very good memory. As a matter of fact, I have no memory at all, but from my youth I have kept, more or less continuously, commonplace books — a jumble of all sorts of things as I came across them in my very desultory reading. These notes were often so carelessly kept as not even to acknowledge where I stole the thought that gave me pleasure. This accounts for my having quotations at hand. Another reviewer kindly said I had a 'marked grace of style.' My dear old mother used to say she never considered a compUment was worth having that was not totally undeserved ! I never had the slightest idea of possessing any style at all. But what is style ? It is a weary topic when so much is said about ' getting style ' (like ' getting religion '). Schopenhauer's remarks on the subject are worth noticing. He writes : ' There is no quality of style that can be got by reading writers who possess it. But if the qualities exist in us — exist, that is to say, potentially — we can caU them forth and bring them into consciousness. "We can learn the pur- poses to which they can be put. We can be strengthened in an inclination to use them, or get courage to do so. The only way in which reading can form style is by SEPTEMBER 3 teaching us the use to -which we can put our own natural gifts. We must have these gifts before we can learn the use of them. Without them, reading teaches us nothing.' One friend wrote : ' I should have liked the book still better if the moral and domestic reflections had been jumbled up with the rest, instead of being put like an appendix at the end.' With this I entirely agree, but my judgment in the matter was overruled by others. The most general criticism has been that the various subjects in the book are not kept enough apart. Some asked : ' Won't you write a cookery book alone ? or a gardening book alone ? ' I could only say that I am no specialist. Dozens of such books exist and are much better than any I could write. I am and must remain an ignorant amateur. My mind only works, as I said before, on the lines of collecting knowledge, sweet and bitter, as I walk along life's way. What I have I can give, but I can neither create nor imagine. The accusations of the sudden, jumps from gardening to surgery, or from cooking to art, which astonished my readers, are perfectly true. But are not these violent and sudden contrasts a marked characteristic of modern life ? Do we not, many of us, any morning, go from our letters or newspapers — con- taining, perhaps, the most tragic human stories, affect- ing ourselves or those we love — to the ordering of the dinner for the friend who is to come in the evening, or seeing that the carriage or the fly is not forgotten for the guest who is leaving before noon ? Such is life. So my months must remain quite as varied as before. It is sad to have to repeat the un-English name of ' Pot-Pov/rri,' which annoyed so many and was never very satisfactory to myself ; but this book in no way aims at being more than a continuation of the first, a kind of second volume, a giving more to those who ask for it. The word 'pot- b2 4 MORE POT-POURRI fcmrrV is so generally accepted in England to mean a sweet and pleasant mixture, that we do not realise that the original word meant a mixed stew, as do its synonyms of ' hotch-potch ' and ' olla podrida,' a favourite Spanish dish consisting of a mixture of various kinds of meat chopped fine and stewed with vegetables. Most of the letters I received were of kindly and affectionate appreciation. But some frankly criticised, while others marked short-comings. As usual, however, in such cases perfectly incompatible qualities were re- quired. For instance, most of my gardening friends were disappointed at the information about gardening being so elementary, telling them Uttle they did not know. They very likely overrated what I had to tell them, but they entirely missed the point of my omitting to make my information as detailed and special as I could have done — first, because I referred them to real gardening books, and secondly because I wanted what I did teU to be particularly addressed to beginners with smaU gardens who wished to do their best, but had little time to spend in the study of other books. On the other hand the ignorant amateurs, for whom it was specially written, mournfully complained that it stiU did not begin enough at the beginning. To these I always answered that Mr. Eobinson must have realised this difficulty, as some years ago he reprinted the 'Amateur Gardener," by Mrs. Loudon (Fredk. Warne & Co.), which is full of this elementary information, and to be had from any bookseller for the sum of ninepence. A third difficulty was the slavish admu-er, who in all soils and even with different chmates said : ' I have strictly carried out your instructions, and utter failure has been the result.' I wish once more to reiterate that anything I say, both in the last volume and in this, with regard to plant life is merely the result of my own SEPTEMBER S personal experience. All that I state is by way of suggestion, not by any means as a law to be carried out at all times and in all places. Several letters of approval I received from working gardeners gave me great pleasure, and one said that he found the book 'very bright and holding.' This seems to me a most expressive word. An- other complaint came from a Londoner, representing the opinion of the inhabitants of towns. He was in exact con- trast to the gardener-friend in the suburbs and the country. He complained bitterly of the long lists of plants, the many details about gardening, and asked pitifully if this part might not have been relegated to an appendix, suggesting that this would make the book much more readable. One man who professed to be no gardener at all said his leading idea in gardening was to dismiss the under- gardener. This is a very common theory with the master of the house who thinks gardens can be well kept very much under-handed. As a rule the best gardens are those where the master of the house superintends the gardening himself. A woman friend who dislikes both garden books and gardening wrote : ' Notices of gardening books might for the sake of the village idiot, for whom everyone writes, have been put in a chapter quite at the end. " Pat,'' as the actors call it, should come at the beginning of a book to encourage the reader.' Perhaps she was not wrong, for I believe, so far as I can gather from the letters, that the non-gardening people like my book best — gardeners after aU being, as they are the first to acknowledge, one-idea'd. And yet no, it cannot have been really so, as by far the most genuine and sympathetic letters I have received have been from real garden lovers — the sick, the old, the expatriated, all joining in one paean of praise over the soul-satisfying occupation of gardening. A few of the London booksellers were rather amusing on the subject, and I have considerable sympathy with 6 MORE POT-POURRI their opinions. One said to a friend of mine, a few months after the book had come out, that it was going into the sixth edition and that he ' couldn't conceive why, as there was nothing in it.' Another shrewdly remarked that he called the book ' a social success, not a literary one.' There was a vein running through several letters which I thought perhaps accounted in some way for the success of the book, as it proved that many people wished to give it to someone else because they found in it a gentle rod wherewith to scourge their neighbour. One critic said that ' a spirit of benign and motherly mate- rialism broods over the book' — an expression which I thought rather nice, as it was what I had aimed at. A second said the book was ' full of good spirits from beginning to end,' and a third discovered that ' a tone of sadness ran through it all.' After critics came the friends who amusingly said: ' The book is so extraordinarily Uke yourself, we can hear your voice speaking all through it.' Strangers, I am told, who know me only by reputation or not at all, kindly settled that it was not written by me, but by some mysterious xmknown person they could not quite hit upon. It is quite true, and I wish to state it again, as I did in my first preface, that I had very real and practical assistance from one of my nieces, who made a most efficient secretary. Our method of working was simple enough. I wrote what I wanted to say and then dictated it to her. In reading aloud, the more flagrant mistakes and repetitions struck the ear quicker than the eye, as is but natural for one more accustomed to speak than to write. Two or three other people helped me by toning down my crude opinions and taking out whole sen- tences that might have been causes of offence. It has for a long time been a favourite theory of mine that, as SEPTEMBER 7 people generally write books with a vague hope that they may be read, it is wise to consult a small number of people typical of the public and to be guided, without too much self-esteem, by the opinions of these selected few. Of course this opens up the further discussion whether, as I saw it well put the other day in the ' Spectator,' ' Success with the multitude is in itself desirable, or if it is not rather the haU-mark of a commonplace inferiority. Who pleases f oohsh readers must himself be a fool. If the general reader is after all quite such a fool as the superior junta think him is another question altogether- But he has the marked advantage of holding the verdict in his hands.' The only rwison d'&tre of ephemeral literature is that it should be read. The writer of genius comes under a different category. He stands on a mountain-top and breathes a rarer atmosphere, and often can only be under- stood from a distance. ' Bethia Hardacre ' exactly expresses this in verse : I pray to fail, if to succeed Means faithlessness unto my creed. Lady Bastlake says on this point : ' Genius, with its divine inspirations, may be left to find its way to the admiration of the few and in the end to the acknowledg- ment of aU.' Many will remember when Mr. Quaritch brought out Fitzgerald's translation of ' Omar Khayyam ' disgusted at its complete failure, he threw the whole edition into a ' penny box.' Dante Eossetti found them, and we all know the rest. Some people said that what really pleased them most in the book were the little bits of poetry. Considering that not one of these was mine, the remark by way of comphment Was rather humorous. Another curious vein of flattery that ran through dozens of the letters was expressive of the vyriters' regret that they had not written ' Pot-Pourris ' of their own, proving the general 8 MORE POT-POURRI truth of how easy everything is if we only take the trouble to do it. The cooking receipts caused panic in some minds and indignation in others. One poor bachelor told his house- keeper to try the receipt in ' Pot-Pourri ' for making a soup. She happened to hit upon the Erench chef's extravagant directions for making consommA and, horrified by the numberless pounds of beef recommended, said : ' Eeally, sir, it would be far cheaper to have down a quantity of tinned soups from the Stores ! ' Another careful mistress of her own house complained very much of different meats amounting to six pounds being used for one pie. But in her case the household consisted of one thin brother and two thinner maids. My receipts, of course, were jumbled together for big and little estabUsh- ments, to be used at the discretion of the housewife. A French lady writes that I make a mistake in thinking that it is usual in Prance to baste chickens with butter, and that they are much better done with the fat of bacon, or suet, or even common lard. I myself generally roast chickens with butter, and find that people like them very much. But of course only fresh butter must be used ; never that horror called ' cooking butter.' It is true that basting them with the fat of good bacon does make them a better colour. In a most humorous article from that delightful writer of the ' Pages from a Private Diary ' in the ' Corn- hill ' there were several funny allusions to my book. I quote the following as a specimen : ' While " doing " my Michaelmas accounts this morning, I found that the butter book (for we use Tom's daury) was half as much Bgain as last quarter, and the reason given by the respon- sible Eugenia is that Mrs. Earle protests against economy in butter. On referring to the passage I find that she suggests instead an economy in meat, and I pointed this SEPTEMBER 9 out to B. ; but the butcher's book shows no proportionate diminution. This has led me to reflect how much more infectious extravagance is than economy.' One of my most complimentary letters was from an old friend, Mrs. Eoundell, asking me to allow her to quote some of my receipts in a new cookery book she was com- piling. This has since appeared vmder the name of 'A Practical Cookery Book ' (Bickers & Son), and is so ex- cellent that it thoroughly convinces me of my wisdom in declining to write one myself. My praise of this book almost suggests a mutual admiration society, as Mrs. Eoundell is very complimentary to me. She begins by thanking me for my receipts, and ends by a quotation from ' Pot-Pourri ' on hospitality and house-keeping. It will be many a long year before her own book is super- seded. The receipts are clear and economical, and its only fault seems to be that at present it costs seven-and- sixpence. A literary friend writes that he has a point of dissent — ' a bit of pedantic purism. Yousaj" chickens." There is no such word : chickere is a plural. Hose, hosen ; chick, chicken ; and in old days many more — as house, housen ; place, pleasen. A fanner's wife, at least in the west, says correctly that she is going to feed her chicken — meaning not one, but many.' It is difi&cult to know when custom asserts itself sufficiently to change grammar, and my critic himself admits that many of the words he quotes are ob- solete. I fear I shall hardly have the courage to say ' truss two fine chicken ' if I come across such a phrase in a receipt. I received very few letters on the nurse question. It had been a good deal discussed in periodicals just before the book came out. An old friend, a doctor, wrote: 'Your chapter on health I take some exception to ; on the question that lo MORE POT-POURRI starvation is a cure for most of the minor ailments of life I agree with you, but I think you are wrong on the subject of nurses. You may get some affection and kindness on the part of a mother, or a sister, or a wife, but I have always held that in really bad cases all three make the worst possible nurses, because so few women can really control their feelings, and where there were great affection and grave anxiety they would be apt to fail in some small details which might be of the utmost importance, where a good trained nurse would not, because she looks on the patient only as a " case," which, if she is a conscientious woman, it is her one object to get well. My experience also does not tally with yours, that the nurse is the tool of the doctor and is bound to approve and agree with him. On the contrary I think many of them, through " a little learning," think they know quite as much as, if not more than, the doctor, and often use their own discretion (?) as to whether they vnU carry out all the orders given them. If the doctor finds out this and remonstrates, he then makes an enemy of a person who at any time may have an opportunity of doing him much professional injury.' I am quite ready to acknow- ledge the correctness of these remarks, and if the nurse and doctor do not work well together any opposition on the part of the nurse might make the situation very dis- agreeable for the doctor, and vice versd. If, on the other hand, they work extremely well together, the patient may be the sufferer, supposing the doctor were mistaken about the case, which does happen with men of the greatest talent. The too literal carrying-out of the doctor's orders, especially with regard to medicines and sleeping-draughts, is often very injurious to the patient. I did not for a moment mean to imply that love and devotion could supply the qualities that are the result of training. But a kind of clear-sightedness and instinct that comes from love SEPTEMBER ii and devotion is by no means always to be found in the professional nurse. I continue to quote typical letters on various subjects as they crop up. One kind old clergyman thought so flatteringly of my powers that he suggests that I should ' utilise the genius which has popularised your book in some of those fields into which your book affords glimpses — why not write on heredity ? ' The fact is, as I have abeady said, I am not able to write a treatise on cooking and gardening, much less could I pretend to give the world any information on great subjects con- nected with science ; and heredity more especially is peculiarly buried in darkness, even for experts. He con- cludes a long and interesting letter as follows : ' Some years ago Sir P. Galton sent me a paper of inquiries (which he was circulating among doctors) as to the physical and psychical history of three generations of ancestors.' This idea of Sir jF. Galton's has been a favourite one with me for years. I have always thought that it would be of the greatest interest in famiUes if a careful register were kept of people's health, diseases, and death, so that some idea might be formed of the general tendencies of family diseases, with their succeeding de- velopment and treatment during three or four genera- tions. It seems satisfactory that a great number of the news- paper critics gave me credit for common-sense. Some few passages in ' Sons and Daughters ' raised opposition, but, I am bound to confess, much less than I expected. My great disappointment was that I got so little actual criticism — I may even say, so little correction. In this, I am told, I was ambitious, as most critics compose their articles by a few quotations, and have neither time nor inclination to really criticise. There was one excellent exception in an interesting and friendly article in th6 12 MORE POT-POURRI ' Spectator.' This critic seems to doubt, more even than I did, the oovirage of parents and nurses as regards giving independence to young children. But in proof of the desirability of my recommendations he quotes Stevenson's admirable saying with regard to a boy : ' It is better for him to break his neck than for you to break his spirit.' This article shows the revers de la midaille so well, as regards the atmosphere of a home, that I copy it. After approving my suggestions about giving allowances to both girls and boys, it goes on to say : ' The question of the frank criticism by children of their home is more doubtful. It is, of course, better that their dissatisfaction should, like the measles, " come out," but what about their home manners ? Criticism is very apt to degenerate into grumbling, and the spectacle of children or young people grumbhng about domestic arrangements is not edifying. Grumbling is always rude; and if manners make the man, it is an undoubted fact that perfect manners are incompatible with absolute brutal outspoken- ness. For instance, the wife and mother who is trying to attain the really lofty standard aimed at in this book cannot, of necessity, be absolutely outspoken. If her work is to be successful, she must not hint that any part of it is distasteful ; that is, she must conceal some of her feelings. Surely children should not be brought up to feel that their father and mother are the only people they may be rude to. And if the money argument is to be applied to thevrife,it must touch the children too; they must not be allowed to take all the luxuries of the house they do not pay for, and then grumble because those luxuries are not arranged as they like best. And now that we apply this reasoning a second time, we see that in reality it is rather an ugly argument. It is a fact, but, like other facts, such as death and digestion, it need not be obtruded at every moment. The woman's work may be given from SEPTEMBER rj love of her home; and the children may forbear, also through love, to tell their mother that the dinner-hour is not quite the fashionable one, and "you might have remembered how I hate that pudding." The mother will look out for herself and see to the tastes of her family, and will in talks with one and the other ask for advice and hints on new ways of arranging the familiar details of life. And so good manners, which are really the Christian virtues of patience, charity, and self-control, will reign in that house, and it will be a far pleasanter place than if everyone in turn were loudly to volunteer their opinion of how it ought to be conducted.' This has truth in it. All individuals must decide for themselves how to draw the line between good manners and what may end in whited sepulchres. This is doubly difficult with children whose natural inclination is to speak as they feel, for not to do so appears to them rather as a deception than as a sparing of other people's feeUngs. Everyone's experience will tell them how early children say to others what they dare not say in their own home. The great difficulty is to keep the love of children. Goethe says: 'There is a politeness of the heart ; this is closely aUied to love. Those who possess this purest fountain of natural politeness find it easy to express the same in forms of outward propriety.' Nothing was more amusing to me than this interest- ing variety in the letters about ' Sons and Daughters.' I will quote passages from several of them : ' I agree with your " Daughters " more than I thought I should. You do not lay such stress as I thought you would on the necessity of getting married and the " complete " point of view.' All the same I maintain that an unmarried woman is not a complete human being. ' I think the chapter on " Sons " the better of the two. But I think independence in boys is far easier to manage 14 MORE POT-POURRI than in girls. School-life brings boys to their proper level. Home-life with absolute freedom rather leads to a girl becoming too confident that her own opinion must be the right one. She rubs up against so few who can or will take her down. The independent girl generally rules those of her own age. Of course you cannot lay down a hard-and-fast rule for any child. Each one has its differ- ent character, to be formed and improved by those who hve with it. This ought to be done by the mother, but it is more often left to an ignorant governess, who does not try to understand the child, who has her own narrow- minded ideas of right and wrong, and never makes allow- ance for high spirit and temper.' ' You must remember that the people I was brought up amongst take their duties as parents seriously, if narrowly — and many of these, as far as they still exist, will be a Uttle startled at some of your theories, and the un- moral (mind, I don't say immoral) tone. Parents and child- ren are a subject of perennial interest. We have all been the one, and many of us the other — and the rest of us stand in loco parentis to some at least of the younger generation. But as long as the world lasts there will be difficulties in that relation. Si jewiesse savait, si vieillesse potivait is a saw which has many meanings. I totally disagree with your idea that the young must never be sacrificed to the old, or the healthy to the sick. Why, your own remarks on nursing testify to the good that may come of such a sacrifice.' This last sentence proves to me that my remarks were not clear, and the impression conveyed is certainly not what I intended. What I really think is that the old have no right to command the young to sacrifice their lives to them. But, on the other hand, the voluntary sacrifice by the young of their own lives, though it should be carefully watched by those about them, is certainly not SEPTEMBER 15 without immense benefit to themselves, self-sacrifice being acknowledged by all moralists to be the greatest strength- ener of human character. There is, however, the great risk and danger of self-suppression. I continue my quotations : ' You put the question of unselfishness in parents or children as being a dif&cult one, but I have always felt that to help each person to be as they ought to be, in the best and highest way for their own characters, is the only right love and influence that each can have for the other, no matter in what relations of life. If you either spoil a child or a parent or husband or wife, so that you make them behave wrongly, you are sure to be distressed by their not doing right, and other people feel the same.' Everyone must agree that to make those we love behave well is the object to be attained. The difficulty is the best method of bringing it about. Is it by unselfish example or by exact- ing unselfishness on the part of others ? Who can say ? Here is a severe condemnation from a father of several children : ' I don't agree one bit with your theoretical subordination of old to young. I think it innately ridicu- lous, essentially false, and at once morbid, superficial, and mischievous.' Nobody actually wrote it to me, but I heard it from several people, that the advice about giving the latch-key to very young boys harassed and worried a great number of mothers. Why, I do not quite understand ; as showing confidence in the boy seems to me the beginning of all true relations between mother and a growing-up son. I still think that if boys are unfit to have a key at seven- teen, or the recommended allowance at an earlier age, it shows that their education has been somewhat defective in fitting them, not for doing well at school, but for the general struggle of life as they get older, which is learnt so well by children in a lower class of life. There might. i6 MORE POT-POURRI of course, be an exception in a family, but that merely means that he is more deficient in common-sense than his brothers, and should be gradually strengthened by some method fitted to his peculiar case. It is a delight- ful feeUng of comfort to me to think that, whatever I suggest, nobody need follow it unless it seems to them good ; but I wrote nothing without deliberate thought and practical experience. As a rule the book seemed to please the old and the young, rather than the middle-aged. Occasionally, how- ever, some few parents wrote appreciating my hints about the modern danger of children growing up more and more apart from their parents. In our grandmothers' days this only happened among what have been called the ' upper ten thousand.' Now it pervades all classes, down to the labourer who has to send his children to the infant and Board school. Not that schools of any sort are neces- sarily bad in themselves, but it is a new position which has to be faced with courage andthoughtfulness by the parents. A young mother wrote f uU of faith in her own excellent principles of how to bring up children, and how easy she had found it to gain an influence on their lives. This cocksureness, natural and even wholesome in the young, often brings about a good deal of disappointment. You may make a soil ever so good, and you may plant ever so good a seed, but even then there can be no security as to results. The very child who is most impressionable and easy to form in youth is also most affected by others as time goes on. The result of a powerful influence which we cannot even trace is what often makes children, as they grow up, almost unrecognisable to their parents. The forming of character, however, is totally different from moulding the impressionable clay, and, like casting bread upon the waters, it may return to us after many days. Here are some pathetic groans from an intensely SEPTEMBER 17 anxious mother of an only daughter : ' Needless to say that the chapter of your book which chiefly interested me is "Daughters," the education of my own being the burn- ing question with me just now. You are certainly very comforting in what you say of " casual and superficial education," but I fear that would not satisfy the professed and professing educationalist. In our case, want of robustness on M.'s part has obliged us to put up with home education, and of course it is then a mere chance whether you happen to get a governess who can really teach ; for the teacher is born, not made. When, however, I read the "Parents' Eeview " or the educational literature it re- commends, I'suffer agonies of remorse from the conscious- ness of not having made enough of these early years. My ambition is humble. I only wish my child to be average, but not to be at a disadvantage if, later on, she is prompted to take some part in the real work of the world. And yet how can I with my own old-fashioned defective education train her in the right way ? This fiend of education sits like a nightmare on me almost day and night — " Almost thou persuadest me it is impossible to be a parent." When I get up from the perusal of these books, I feel castigated to such an extent that my mind feels sore all over, and into those wounds you pour the oil and wine of consolation. My husband, highly educated as he is himself, is very much inclined to take your view, and has, if anything, kept me back rather than urged me on, always fearing that, instead of arousing an interest in a subject, one should simply cause a lasting distaste, if it is offered too early to the immature mind. We cannot, however, put off this " training of faculty " indefinitely, and I am becoming more and more awake to the fact that my child in her cosy, comfortable home does not know as much as I, immured in a boarding-school, knew at her age. The most tantalising part of the matter is that when I c i8 MORE POT-POURRI can shake off this incubus of duty, she and I are so happy together. I suppose there is some similarity in our minds and tastes that makes her very responsive to me. I cannot bring myself, ovnng doubtless to my own defec- tive bringing-up, to stand at a distance, as it were, and criticise severely. As M. has no classes this afternoon, we are off to the British Museum — a sort of treat we both thoroughly enjoy. But, as you know, I am given to misgivings ; the question arises sometimes whether the companionship of my mature mind is the best. " Child- hood ought to be vnth childhood " is constantly being repeated to me.' This letter seemed to me so touching that I sent it to a friend of mine much interested in the subject. She returned it with the following remarks, which express in strong terms very much what I feel myself : ' I quite agree — one of the most interesting letters you've had. But it is harrowing to me the way this poor mother won't let herself benefit by your advice, although she seems to approve of it. You ask for my comments. I should say she gives the receipt of what her line of con- duct should be in the sentence " When I can shake off this incubus of duty she and I are so happy together. I suppose there is some similarity in our minds and tastes that makes her very responsive to me." Just fancy a mother having that opportunity and not using it ! There's hardly a parent in fifty could boast as much. Personal contact and sympathy with an older person means hot- house growth to the mental capabilities of a chUd. The one fear is lest it should overforce them. What do the geography, history, arithmetic, and all the details of early education matter ? The child's general intelligence and power of acquiring knowledge from her own observa- tion, which is the only true educator, will develop much more fully and rapidly in the mother's company than SEPTEMBER 19 with a governess, especially if the mother lays herself out to share all her knowledge so far as possible with her child. As she grows up, the child will be the first to discover where she is at a disadvantage compared to others. If 'she is indifferent about this, I should say no one else need mind for her, and she will be none the worse. But if she minds, and she probably will, she can then acquire the belated knowledge in half the time and with half the money spent on teachers that would be required if spread out over a childhood more or less reluctant to learn. Do try and stop the lady from taking in " educational literature," for I'm sure it's not only useless but harmful to fret one's conscience unless it leads to conviction, and fortunately this mother seems not convinced by the " prof essing educationalists." . . . If the child is already fifteen or sixteen, the only modi- fication I should make to what I have said would be to recommend putting most forcibly before the girl herself that if she has to, or wishes to, "take some part in the real work of the world " she must utilise her best faculties to the full and try to diminish her deficiencies.' The burning question of what girls should or should not read called forth a good deal of comment and opposition. The following was one of the best of the letters on this subject : ' I think that, allowing for hereditary instincts and inherited character, or want of it, there can be no hard-and-fast rule as to allowing girl children to read without restriction. So much allowance must be made for the enormous difference in children, who are, quite unconsciously to themselves, swayed by tempera- ment or feelings the real nature of which they are ignorant and innocent of. This question opens up a very vride field, and perhaps in your book you could only afford space for generalisation on such a subject. I also o2 ao MORE POT-POURRI feel that children, like older people and plants and any living thing, are subject to the eternal and terrible order of change ; have phases during which their whole nature may become either lethargic and indifferent, or on the other hand be dominated by sexual feehng, receptive or otherwise. One girl at the budding period feels and sees nothing harmful to her mind and morals ; whUe another, hitherto pure and simple-minded, may have her imagina- tion stimulated and her morbid curiosity partially grati- fied by access to all and any kind of reading, and this may have the effect of soiling a mind in the first and most delicate stage of development. Children, too, are extraordinarily unexpected in their phases, and often turn out so much better or worse than one thought with- out any apparent reason.' As regards the reading, in spite of all that has been said, I cannot alter my view that on the whole it is better to leave a great deal of liberty from childhood upwards, allowing the child to form her own taste, it being better to manage the reading of the young by advice than by restrictions. September 3rd. — A few days ago I returned home after being abroad and away from my garden for over three months. I left towards the end of May, when aU was fresh and green, bursting with bud and life, and full of the promise of the coming summer. In three months all seemed over ; the little place looked dried up and miserable, small, ugly, disappointing — in fact, hardly worth possessing at all. I felt dreadfully depressed, but of course all this was in great measure due to the time of year, the end of August being the very worst month for this garden, and one that I have never attempted to struggle with, yielding rather to the difficulties and generally going away. Shall I also confess my own character had something to do with it ? Many people say, ' Absence makes the heart SEPTEMBER 21 grow fonder.' This is not my case under any circum- stances, and especially not with my little home and garden. The more I live here, the more I tend and cherish it ; the more pains I bestow upon it, the more I love it. "When I am urged to travel and change, I only feel that I agree with Mr. Watson in these lines : Nay, bid me not my cares to leave, Who cannot from their shadow flee. I do but win a short reprieve, 'Scaping to pleasure and to thee. I may at best a moment's grace. And grant of liberty, obtain ; Bespited for a little space, To go back into bonds again. After being away for only a short time I come back with the keenest excitement. But when I have been away for some long time and got interested in other things, I come back in an ungardening mood, have forgot- ten all the horticultural names, and — if the time of year is unfavourable — I see, too clearly, nothing but the faults, and have a much too direct answer to Burns's prayer in the last verse of his queer Uttle poem, ' To a Louse, on seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church ' : wad some pow'r the giftie gi'e us To see oursels as others see us 1 It wad frae monie a blunder free us And foolish notion : What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us. And ev'n Devotion I I love what I am with, but with me, alas ! les absents ont toujours tort, and for weeks I had been used to greater beauties and wider interests. Here the dome of heaven 22 MORE POT-POURRI is lower, and no cypresses point upwards. The moral to me is quite clear : gardeners should only go away from home to learn, not to see how beautiful the world is else- where without any gardens at aU, the science of life being to make the best of what we have to our hand, not to pine for what we have not. September 5th. — The dryness continues, and we wait in vain for rain. The weather makes us doubly appreciate the small square of cool water just in front of the dining- room window, and the pleasure it seems to bring to bird and insect. Great fat thrushes splash themselves in the shallow edges specially prepared for them with big stones, as they seem much afraid of deep water. Two of us were sitting at early breakfast when my companion said to me in a subdued voice, ' Look there ! ' I saw, perched on a hanging branch of the rose growing on the Pergola, the most beautiful Kingfisher. His blue wings flashed in the sunshine, and, turning his red breast, it glowed like that of a tropical bird. In a few seconds he flew away. I have never before seen a Kingfisher in this dry garden, and I can only account for it, as we are more than a mile from the river, by something peculiar in the season and his being attracted, in his search for food, by the gold-fish in my little fountain. A friend told me that the same thing happened in her garden, and that the Kingfisher, never seen before, beat himself against the glass window. One of the fev/ things that looked really well in the garden when I came home was the Cape annual, Nemesia strumosa. The dryness apparently had suited the flowering capabilities of the annual, but, finding that it was forming no seed, I watered it daily, as it is one of the plants from which it is well worth while to save the seed, selecting it from the best-coloured flowers. The seed wants a good deal of care in the gathering, as it is so SEPTEMBER 23 very ephemeral — unripe one day and gone the next. For a person of my age it means groping on the ground each morning with one's spectacles on. I certainly must add it to the list of annuals worth growing in a small garden. We sow it in place the middle of May. September 7th.— The old-fashioned Zauschneria Gali- fornica, when well grown, is a very pretty plant with its soft gray leaves and scarlet flowers. I have had it for years, and it has stood any amount of moving about into different places. It never died, and yet never flowered. I grew it on rockwork, I grew it in shade, I grew it in the sun. It formed bushy little plants, but never had a single flower. My patience was nearly coming to an end, and I fell back on the gardener's usual solace — that the soil did not suit it. When I paid a visit to Mr. Thompson of Ipswich I found it flowering most satisfactorily, and learnt from him the eternal story that what it wanted was good feeding. It should have very good rich soil, plenty of manure, and be put in a place that is free from damp in winter. This is the difficulty with so many of the foreign plants we try to grow. They want damp in their flowering- time, when we are dry ; and dryness in the winter, when we are wet. I came home, broke up my Zauschneria, planted it in on the edge of a raised vine- border in full sunshine and with very well rotted manure. Helped, no doubt, also by the sunny season, it has flowered splendidly this year, and is even finer than the one I had seen at Ipswich. I think it is the better, like many other things, for watering when the buds are formed. I see in an un-modern gardening book that it only came to England in 1847. We find no difliculty in pro- pagating it by division in spring. Cuttings strike easily in a little heat, and form blooming plants in the same season. Phloxes have done very badly this year, whether 24 MORE POT-POURRI removed from the reserve garden or left alone. In very dry seasons it is best quickly to cut them down ; they flower again well when the rain comes. Michauxia cam- panuloides is flowering now for the second time. I have never grown it before, and its first bloom was in June, while I was away, so that I did not see it in its prime. The seed unfortunately does not ripen here, but it seems to me a plant worthy of all the trouble that biennials give ; and experiments should be tried in growing it. I am now going to try it grown the second year in pots, under glass, in a cool house, in the same way as a Campanula pyramidalis is grown. I expect it will be very fine. When grown out of doors it should be moved from the seed-bed into a dry sunny place, and it wants as much water as you can give it when about to flower. It is figured in vol. xvii. of Curtis's ' Botanical Magazine,' but the flower there depicted gives little idea of the beauty of the whole plant, although the unusual shape and love- liness of the flower itself are well rendered. Michauxia tchinatchewii (see Thompson's Hst) is new to me and, I am told, good. The Belladonna Lilies, treated as described in my first book, have flowered excellently, many having two flower-stems from apparently the same bulb. I imme- diately sent to Holland for two dozen more, as I beheve there has been a disease among them in some places and that they are now rather scarce. As an example of how small a thing will affect the flowering of Cape bulbs, I noted this spring that the leaves in the more northern part of my little bed got injured by frost and east vsrind — not very severely, but sUghtly — and out of that dozen bulbs only one flowered. A favourite httle plant of mine which I have had for years has flowered unusually well this year. It is called Tricyrtis hirta, and is a small Japanese Lily — very quiet in SEPTEMBER 25 colour, and spotted all over with lilac spots ; but beautiful in its growth, and well worth cultivating. The dry rock- work seems to suit it, but I generally water it when coming into flower. Every year as it comes round it is a pleasurable excitement to see it develop its late flowers. In a book by Mrs. Brightwen (' Glimpses into Plant Life : an Easy Guide to the Study of Botany,' Eisher Unwin) it is alluded to as a typical pollenation plant. She says : ' We have seen that there are all kinds of devices by which the pollen of one flower may be made sure to reach the stigma of another ; but if by any means this crossing fails, it the weather is such that insects are scarce or other conditions cause failure, then, in the case of many flowers, most curious contrivances are provided to secure seed by self-pollenation. Truly this is one of the most beautiful of God's wonders in floral construction. One of the gems of my own flower-garden is a lovely little Japanese toad-lily {Tricyrtis hirta). In this flower there are three styles which stand well above the stamens ; the points of the styles are bent over, and the stigmatic surface grows mature before the anthers shed their pollen. If, however, no insect visits the flowers, pollenation is effected in the following way : the styles bend down and place their forked points in direct contact with the open anther-lobes, the style assuming almost the form of a semicircle. This is done very deliberately, for it is often a week before the act is complete.' I think that ' Glimpses into Plant Life ' is a book that everyone interested in country life or a garden would very much enjoy. The illustrations are clear and good, and explain the text satisfactorily. Nothing is more useful at this time of year in a window or a greenhouse than the Vallota purpurea. It is perfectly easy of cultivation, if the leaves are encouraged in their growth and thoroughly sunned and dried off.- 26 MORE POT-POURRI The bulb should be very rarely re-potted and well watered in its growing state. I am always hearing that people lose their plants ; this is probably from the gardener's over-care and keeping them too warm and wet through the winter. I am going to try them out of doors next year, as Mr. Eobinson recommends, now that I have plenty of offsets, but I confess I have never seen them doing well in England out of doors. They probably do not fear cold, as I saw many in full flower on cottage window-sills in Norway. The west sides of rockeries are often very dull, especially in autumn. I find Origanum hyhridum is a charming, interesting, curious little plant that flowers freely in a dry place in August and September. It is almost exactly the same as the old 0. dictainnus figured in vol. xix. of Curtis's 'Botanical Magazine.' Curtis says : ' Turner, whose Herbal was printed in 1568 writes thus concerning it : "I have seen it growynge in England in Master Eiches gardin naturally, but it groweth nowhere ellis that I know of saving only in Candy." ' This is rather a nice way of telling us where the plant comes from. It seems easy of cultivation, and worth growing. Caryopteris macranthe is a little blue dwarf shrub that I have hardly ever seen anywhere, but which I grow and increase here quite easily, and find it very attractive. It Virants a dry situation, and flowers better if cut back after flowering. It should be fed with a little mulching and watering when it comes into bud. I increase it easily from cuttings in spring. As time goes on I become fonder and fonder of the generally abused Polygonums. Mr. Eobinson, in his latest edition of ' The English Flower Garden,' speaks of them also with much favour, and gives a splendid list of the varieties ; but even he does not lay stress enough upon what entirely different plants they become if sufficiently thinned out and SEPTEMBER 27 the suckers pulled off each spring. Otherwise they are ragged, intolerable weeds. If P. sachalinense is planted even under shade or in half-shade, thinned out to three or four shoots, and watered or hosed in dry weather, the yearly growth is absolutely tropical. It turns a rich yel- low colour in early autumn, and forms a splendid feature in places where many plants would not grow at all, such as under Fir-trees or in very poor soil. P. molh I do not think Mr. Eobinson names, and yet it is a beautiful thing ; though some years, if in an exposed place, it flowers so late that it gets injured by frost. It requires dividing every autumn, re-planting in better soil, and thinning every spring ; it is well, if it can be watered, to grow it under some tree or shrub, which protects it in case of early frost. It is worth some trouble, as its flowering branches, almost like feathery white lilac, are very hand- some, coming as they do so late in the year. P. UicMUni is a very dwarf kind I brought from Germany, and will, I think, prove a useful little plant on the rockery for September flowering. The light blue Cape Plumbago cwpensis is doing very well this hot year, and is covered, out of doors, with its lovely cool china-blue flowers. No other colour in the garden is quite like it. It looks especially well planted against the posts of a verandah. "We pot up the old plants in October, cut them back, tie them up — when they take very little room — and keep them rather dry aU the winter in a cold shed just safe from the frost. We bring them on a little in the spring, and plant them out the end of May against a warm wall, though I am not at all sure that this last is necessary. All , they want is sunshine and copious waterings. They are commonly treated in this way in German gardens. Mr. Eobinson says they can be increased by division of the roots, but we also find cuttings strike easily in spring ; and three or four young plants in a pot, as they 28 MORE POT-POURRI flower at the top, are very pretty in a greenhouse or window. Solanum jasminoides can be treated in exactly the same way, though it will live out through ordinary winters, especially if sheltered by some other growth. Last spring my jealousy was excited by seeing Camellias flowering very well out of doors. The prin- ciple on which they were managed was to plant them in a thick shrubbery with overhanging branches of Ehodo- dendron or some other evergreen shrub. The ground was prepared with a good deal of peat. In consequence of the successful healthy look of these Camellias I have myself planted out two large old trees. The great secret of success is that they should face due north, and be well watered in dry weather. If Dielytra spectabilis is planted in the same way, facing north and under the protection of some shrub, it flowers well out of doors. It always gets injured by spring winds and frosts in the open borders here. September 10th. — All the Punkias are worth growing, but all might be left out of a small garden except Funkia sieboldi. That, anyhow, must be grown out of doors, as it is a beautiful plant, gives no trouble, flowers every year, and lasts very well in water. If kept in a pot it flowers at the same time as out of doors, but under glass the flowers are distinctly finer. It is not very often seen, but is quite the handsomest, I think, of the Funkias. A friend asks me to recommend a really good book on the kitchen garden, including the proper treatment of fruit-trees. I know no one book complete ; the information on vegetables and fruit must be gleaned apart. For detailed directions on the culture of vegetables none comes near the translation of Vilmorin's, mentioned before. But for ordinary purposes and as a cheap book Sutton's ' The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers ' (Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.) is excellent. ' Profitable Fruit- SEPTEMBER 29 growing,' by John Wright, F.E.H.S. (171 Fleet Street, London), is clear, comprehensive, and concise, giving excellent information on pruning and general cultivation of all outdoor fruit-trees, and currants, gooseberries, and raspberries. It makes no allusion to orchard houses, nor to vines under glass or out of doors. Samphire is a herb I have never yet tried to grow. I believe it is only to be had wild in its integrity from Norfolk, where they still make quite an industry of gathering and pickling it. The fresh Samphire is only to be found in August and September. A critic in ' The Guardian ' on ' Pot-Pourri ' says it is a mistake to prune Chymonanthus fragrans after flowering in the winter, as I suggested ; and adds, ' it should be done late in the summer by shortening back the year's growths to a quarter of their own length or less, to throw the vigour of the shrub into the short flowering spur rather than let it run into long, leafy and flowerless branches.' I think this quite true, but I call that cutting-back. What I mean by ' pruning ' is taking out real branches, and I think that is desirable here in this light soil with nearly all the flowering shrubs directly after flowering, as well as cutting-back later in the year if they make too much growth. I wonder the claret-coloured Vine is so seldom planted. The foliage is handsome and efifective, and the little bunches of black grapes are interesting, and remind one of the ornaments in early Gothic churches. The stunted bunches are quite different in shape from those of ordinary grapes. They grow well up a pole, and make a good rough arch. Pancretiums are excellent green- house plants and well worth growing, especially P. fragrans. But in a small garden and greenhouse all these bulbs and plants want remembering and looking after in order to get a good succession, and the head of the 30 MORE POT-POURRI garden must help the gardener, as it is absolutely impossible, with the number of things requiring his con- stant attention, that he should remember them all himself. September 11th. — ^What a week of excitement this has been, even for those without near relations in that far- away Nile Valley ! Never in all my life do I remember what might be called the aggressive, grasping, ruling spirit of the typical John Bull to have been so united and so universal. War and the pity of it, and the ques- tion why it has to be, which was so strong a feeUng and which had such large numbers of supporters in the old Crimean day and even in the Indian Mutiny time, seems now simply non-existent. Is this gain or is it loss? Is it progress or is it retrogression? A most curious and, to me, poetic description, showing the con- servativeness of the East, and how certain effects suggest- ing certain word-paintings were the same in the time of David as to-day, struck me very forcibly when I read it in yesterday's ' Spectator,' and I record it here. That a figure of speech which has long puzzled somewhat ignorant Bible commentators should be explained, as with a limelight flash, by the unconscious wording of a war- correspondent of to-day seems indeed a drawing together of all historic times : ' The telegraphic despatch conveying the news of the battle of Omdurman contained an interesting illustration of a verse of the sixty-eighth Psalm which has caused some difficulty to commentators. The Prayer Book ver- sion reads (verse 14) : " When the Almighty scattered kings for their sake : then were they as white as snow in Salmon " — i.e., as generally explained, the flashing of the armour of the slain warriors resembled the snow shining on the dark boughs of the forest. Unconsciously perhaps the writer of the telegraphic despatch has used the same simile. His words are : " After the dense mass of the SEPTEMBER 31 Dervishes had melted to companies and the companies to driblets, they broke and fled, leaving the field white with jibba-clad corpses, like a meadow dotted with snowdrifts." ' Is this really the last of these snow-flecked plains, or will another Mahdi and other Dervishes arise in future ages, to once more strew the ground with these white-clad corpses ? September IBth. — Last year, about this time, I drove to Mr. Barr's at LongDitton, and there I saw, planted out in an open bed, Tigridias, both white and red ; and they looked splendid. I have never seen them grown out of doors in gardens, but Mrs. Loudon in her ' Ladies' Plower Garden ' (the volume on bulbous plants) speaks of them as easily cultivated if taken up in the autumn. Mrs. Loudon says : ' They have tunicated bulbs and very long fibrous roots which descend perpendicularly. They should be planted in a very deep rich soil, which should either be of an open nature, or be kept so by a mixture of a sufficient quantity of sand, so as to allow a free passage for the descent of the roots, in the same way as is necessary for Hyacinths. If Tigridias are to be raised from seed, the seeds are sown in March or April on a hot-bed and transplanted into the open border in May. Here they may remain till the leaves begin to wither in autumn, when the young bulbs should be taken up and kept for planting the ensuing spring. The splendid colours of this flower and the easiness of its culture render it a general favourite. Its only faults are that its flowers have no fragrance, and that they are of very short duration, never lasting more than a day. But they are produced in such abundance in succession as to com- pensate for this defect. It is a native of Mexico. In its native country its bulb is considered medicinal, and it was on this account that it was sent to Europe by Hernandez, physician to Philip II. of Spain, when he 32 MORE POT-POURRI was employed by the Spanish Government to examine into ' the virtues ' of the plants of the New World. It was not introduced into England till 1796. It is suffi- ciently hardy to be left in the ground all the winter, were it not on account of the danger to which it would be exposed from damp. It is better to take it up in September or October, tie it in bundles, and hang it up in a dry place till spring. "Why it is always grown by gardeners in pots I do not know. In his last edition Mr. Eobinson speaks very favourably of growing it out of doors, and mentions particularly the ivory-white one vyith carmine-red base, which I saw last year and thought very beautiful. What he says about cultivation is exactly what I have quoted above from Mrs. Loudon. In fact, treat them exactly as one would the Gandavensis gladioli. Gerarde in his Herbal speaks with dehghtful distrust of the very existence of the Tigridia as described by travellers. After trying to illustrate the plant from description he goes on to say: 'The second feigned picture hath beene taken of the Discouerer and others of later time, to be a kinde of Dragons not seene of any that haue written thereof ; which hath moued them to thinke it a feigned picture likewise ; notwithstanding you shall reoeiue the description thereof as it hath come to my hands. The root (saith my Author) is bulbous or Onion fashion, outwardly blacke ; from the which springs vp long leaues, sharpe pointed, narrow, and of a fresh greene colour : in the middest of which leaues rise vp naked or bare stalkes, at the top whereof groweth a pleasant yellow floure, stained with many small red spots here and there confusedly cast abroad : and in the middest of the floure thrusteth forth a long red tongue or stile, which in time groweth to be the cod or seed-vessell, crooked or wreathed, wherein is the seed. The virtues and temperature are not to be spoken of, considering that SEPTEMBER 33 we assuredly persuade our selues that there are no such plants, but meere fictions and deuioes, as we terme them, to giue his friend a gudgeon.' ' Giving his friend a gudgeon ' is apparently a Gerardian expression for what we should now call in familiar language * pulling his leg.' I alluded before (page 132 of ' Pot-Pourri ') to the cultivation of the large Japanese Stonecrop {Sedum spectabile). I have grown to like it more and more, because it is a very obliging plant, and will grow even in shade, though the specimens are far finer if grown in good soil and moved into a sunny place in July or August. I always take this little trouble, and in September I have my reward. Many people wiU not appreciate the great beauties of this plant because of the colour of the flowers, which are of rather an inartistic magenta-pink ; but the insects do not find this so, and the reason I grow so much of it is that the bees simply love it. The httle hard- working honey-bee, the large handsome bumble-bee, flies and beetles of aU kinds, and the beautiful common butter- flies, all flop about it with the keenest enjoyment, the colour of the flower only making a groundwork to their bright hues on a sunny September morning. I never fail either to think, as I look at this scene, of a little poem by Victor Hugo which was the delight of my youth, though perhaps for non-floral reasons : La pauvre fleur disait au papillon celeste : ' Ne fuis pas ! Vois comme nos destins sont diffcSrents, Je reste, Tu t'en vas 1 ' Pourtant nous nous aimons, nous vivons sans les hommos Et loin d'eux, Et nous nous ressemblons, et Ton dit que nous sommes Fleurs tous deux t 34 MORE POT-POURRI ' Mais, hdlas ! I'air t'emporte et la terre m'enchalne ; Sort cruel ! Je voudrais embaumer ton vol de mon haleine Dans le ciel 1 ' Mais non, tu vas trop loin ! Parmi des fleurs sans nombre Vous fuyez, Et moi je reste seul k voir tourner mon ombre A mes pieds I ' Tu fuis, puis tu reviens, puis tu t'en vas encore Luire ailleurs. Aussi me trouves-tu toujours & chaque aurore Toute en pleurs 1 ' Oh ! pour que notre amour coule des jours fiddles, mon roi ; Prends comme moi racine, ou donne moi des ailes Comme il toi I ' Now and then quite strange insects appear just once, and then never again. I have heard that is because eggs of insects are sometimes deposited in baskets or bales bringing goods from hot countries, which in dry summers are hatched out in these Northern cHmates. One summer my Sedums were covered with a lovely green beetle. I have never seen him again, but I am tcfo ignorant to know if he were a stranger or only an insect common in our gardens and appearing in some summers and not in others — a usual occurrence with aU insects. Sometimes there are a quantity of one kind, they having triumphed over their natural enemies and flourished abundantly. Then for a year or two they disappear entirely. This is an especial characteristic of butterflies. I thought there might be some way of encouraging butterflies in my garden, where they seem to have become rarer, and I asked a friend who has studied natural history all his life whether he could help me to do this. His answer was : ' The way to have butterflies is to encourage the food- SEPTEMBER 35 plants of the caterpillar.' He added : ' Fortunately our three handsomest English butterflies feed on the nettle — the Peacock, the Small Tortoiseshell, and the Bed Admiral. The Purple Emperor is too rare for considera- tion.' I, being a gardener before all things, did not think it was at all fortunate that their natural food was nettles. I had spent my whole life in eradicating nettles, so it is perhaps not astonishing if butterflies have become less in my garden. We have had a great many Figs this year, and they have ripened well. No doubt they do better since we have removed suckers and the small autumn Figs that never ripen here. It is curious how few people in England realise that, apparently, the Fig never flowers, and that what we call the fruit is the flower. Male and female mixed are inside the Pig, which when it enlarges forms the receptacle and encloses numerous one-seeded carpels im- bedded in its pulp. This may be seen quite plainly by cutting open a slightly unripe Fig. I used to think the flower of the Fig was so small that it was invisible ! My little Mulberry-tree, planted only fifteen years ago and now a good size, did wonderfully well this year. All over England Mulberries fruited in great quantities from the hot dry season. They are trees that require much judicious pruning, and taking out great branches now and then, or the fruit never ripens because of the size and thickness of the leaves. I have lately read that Leonardo da Vinci's great patron at Milan, Ludovico il Moro, was so named, not from the dark- ness of his complexion, as Gibbon supposes, but because he took a Mulberry-tree {moro) for his device — from its being considered vdser than all other trees, as it buds later and does not flower until it has escaped the injuries of winter, when it immediately bears fruit. This the Prince considered was emblematic of his disposition. To us it d2 36 MORE POT-POURRI means tliat Mulberry-trees should be much more grown than they are, not only because they are beautiful and useful, but because of this late budding. The fruit is ex- cellent cooked with Apples, even if it is not quite ripe. Sweet Spanish Chestnuts are also very late trees in spring. Sweet-scented Geraniums cut back in the spring do best for autumn and winter. For planting out the next year they should be cut back hard, like show Pelargoniums, at the end of September. My trees of Magnolia grandiflora, though still small, are covered this year with their beautiful flowers. These are, I am sure, best always cut off. It only strengthens the trees for forming flower-buds next year. September 15th. — For those who care to have Sweet- peas early in the year, it is well to sow them now in the drills or holes, so as to earth them up a little after they come through the soU. Cassia corymhosa is a yellow greenhouse plant now in flower and very useful. It is so nearly hardy that it will grow, hke the blue Plumbago, against a south wall in the summer months. It comes from Buenos Ayres, and won't stand any frost. September 25th.— 1 saw a Suffolk garden this September where I learnt more in an hour than one would do in most places in a week. It was a beautiful, stately, flat garden and on a very large scale, with tall trees and broad expanses of lawn, which, in spite of my opinion stated before, and which angered so many of my readers (about overdoing grass in small places), I do immensely admire when sufficiently spacious and with spreading timber feathering to the ground. I saw in this garden the finest tubs of Hydrangeas I have ever seen anywhere. They were much raised above the ground, on a half -tub reversed or on bricks, so that the plants, which had been left alone for many years, fell all round, covering the tubs almost SEPTEMBER 37 entirely. The tubs were painted ■white, and the gardener told me that instead of putting them into any house or shed in winter he put them under very thick shrubs. In his case he was fortunate to have an Ilex grove. Nothing was cut off the Hydrangeas but the faded flowers. By this means they get the damp and cold which only strengthen them in their resting state. In the spring he cuts out the dead wood, mulches and copiously waters them when they begin to grow, and the result was certainly most satisfactory. Hydrangeas strike very easily in spring; and small young plants, especially if white or blue — which the pink ones will often turn to if planted in peat — make useful small decorative plants in a greenhouse or for late flowering. The tubs of Cape Agapanthus were less fine in foliage than mine are ; but they had spike upon spike of bloom, which is really what one wants. He treated these in the same way as before described for Hydrangeas, leaving them out all the winter. Mine were kept in a cool greenhouse, and looked perfectly healthy, but had hardly any flowers at all this year. It's the old story. Everything from the Cape stands many kinds of treatment, but must have a long period of rest in order to flower well. Under a tall wall facing west in this Suffolk garden was a glorious border of many of the hardiest Bamboos, with a few strong-growing herbaceous plants in between and towards the front. The soil, in spite of the dryness of the year, was moist and very heavy, and the gardener told me he never dug up the border or touched it except to thin out and dig a big wedge out of the herbaceous plants with his spade in winter, filling up the hole with strong manure well stamped in. This, where size of clumps and filling up of large spaces are wanted, is quite an admirable plan. No re-planting is either neces- sary or desirable. In a small garden and hght soil, where refinement and specimen plants are desired, re-planting 38 MORE POT-POURRI and dividing, as well as thinning out, certainly seem to me to give finer blooms. On the top of a low wall dividing this garden from another portion of it were some flower-boxes well filled with traihng and half-hardy plants, brilliant in colour and easy to water and attend to ; and the effect was very good, and might be adopted on those dreary little walls that sometimes divide small viUa gardens from their neighbours. The evaporation from painted wood is very much less than from flower-pots, and there is no fear of their being thrown over by a high wind. Going about, I observe that — next to pruning and cutting back — there is nothing people are so ignorant about as watering, especially in dry weather. The ordinary non-gardening mind seems to think that if a thing looks blighted or faded or drooping, it is ' below par/ and that water acts as the required tonic ; whereas it is often that the dry weather has only hastened the period of rest, and when that is the case nothing is so hopeless as watering anything that is not in full growth. Consequently in mixed borders, unless very carefully done, to a plant that is coming into bud, watering — and, above all, hosing — is best left alone ; and much watering in the summer is very injurious to spring-flowering shrubs. At the same time copious soaking once or twice a week is necessary very often to keep newly planted things aUve. Half-hardy planted-out things, annuals, and plants lately moved from the reserve garden, can safely be watered. In this Suffolk garden aU watering was done at four or five in the morn- ing, the gardeners leaving off work at two in the afternoon. This plan, I think, would often work very well both for masters and men dm-ing the long hot days, but gardeners seldom like it. SEPTEMBER 39 Ebceipts I indiscreetly asked one of my rather intimate friends whether he had read ' Pot-Pourri.' He said, rather hastily : ' No, I gave it to my cook.' This impressed me with the idea that a good number of people valued the first ' Pot-Pourri ' a great deal more for its cooking receipts than for anything else. Consequently the book quickly leaves the library or the drawing-room for the kitchen, and I think it would be a distinct assistance to the cook if I keep these new receipts as much as possible together, though I allot them a place in each month, as the times and seasons have such a great influence on food and garden produce. In this book I reserve to myself the right to spell recipe ' receipt,' to which some of my friends objected before. I was taught that recipe meant a prescription, and it always seems to me a slight affectation when I see it in a cookery book. I believe ' receipt ' to be quite as old and good a word used in this sense. In an old cookery book of mine which was written by a lady and published in 1770 the word ' is spelt ' receipt.' I take a great interest in cooks, and am always most anxious to help them, having agreed from my youth upwards with Owen Meredith's delicious lines in ' Lucile ' : We may live without poetry, music, and art ; We may live without conscience, and live without heart ; We may live without friends ; we may live without boots ; But civilised man cannot live without cooks. He may live without books — what is knowledge hut grieving ? He may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving ? He may live without love — what is passion but pining ? But where is the man that can live without dining ? There have been some complaints about the cooking 40 MORE POT-POURRI receipts not being exact enough. I had tried them all myself, and with success, with several cooks, but I do not deny they were intended for those who understood cooking sufficiently to refer to more detailed books when they felt themselves to be ignorant. I shall continue to refer to ' Dainty Dishes ' (by Lady Harriet St. Clair) as I did before, and without it my receipts are incomplete. Cooks differ very much in how they follow receipts. Some try to do it literally, but without judgment as regards increasing or decreasing quantities according to the number for whom they have to cook. Other cooks accept a receipt with the distinct conviction that their own way is far the best, and naturally then the new receipt does not turn out very satisfactorily. A good many cooks carry out a receipt very well the first time, and then think they know it by heart, and in a high- handed way never look at it again. All this is where the eye and the head of the mistress come in. Without showing it she must know the peculiarities of her own particular cook, and by gentle flattery lead her back into the right way. ■ As my excuse for a certain vagueness in some of the receipts, I give them as they were given to me, for I did not by any means invent them all. Even when they are mine, I instruct the cook, but do not myself cook. Some of my nieces scolded me for not putting the receipt for my bread sauce in my last book, saying they so seldom found it really good elsewhere. It is made in every EngUsh kitchen, small and big ; and yet how very rarely is it excellent, as it ought to be, and with what horror is it viewed by foreigners ! Bread Sauce. — It is very important that the bread should be grated from a tin loaf, and allowed to dry in a paper bag for some time before using it. It is absolutely impossible to make good bread sauce with new bread. SEPTEMBER 41 Cut up an onion in rather large pieces, boil it in milk, pass it through a sieve, or remove the onion. Pour the milk boiling over the crumbs, and add a few peppercorns. Boil the vs^hole in a china saucepan for about twenty minutes. As the milk is absorbed, add a little more until it is an even mass, neither too moist nor too dry. Eemove the peppercorns before serving, and stir in a large piece of fresh butter. Many people add cream, which spoils it. Cream makes the sauce tasteless and fade. The following is a much simpler receipt, and suggests a poultice rather more than I quite like ; but it is excellent to eat, and useful to know, as it can be carried out in a sick-room or a lodging-house kitchen. Take a breakfast- cupful of fresh breadcrumbs, rubbed, not grated; a breakfastcupful of milk. Cut up into it an onion, and add two or three peppercorns. Boil the milk up and pour it on the crumbs, which have been put into a small basin. Cover over, and let it stand for two hours. Eemove any pieces of onion that show. Warm up before it is wanted with a small piece of fresh butter the size of a walnut. It is also, under the same circumstances, useful to know that chickens or game of any kind can be perfectly well roasted in a baking-tin on a little kettle-stand in front of any ordinary fire in the following way : Put a little bacon fat in the pan, lay the bird in it on its side with the back towards the fire. Baste well. When sufficiently done, turn it on to the other leg, with the back still towards the fire. For ten minutes at the end, with a large fowl or pheasant, turn the breast to the fire, basting it well. The time a bird will take to roast must depend on its size. Woodcocks, snipe, and larks will take a very short time. Vegetable Marrow. —Peel a young vegetable 42 MORE POT-POURRI marrow, cut it across in slices the thickness of a finger, and put them in a tin in a moderate oven with a little piece of butter on each. Bake for nearly an hour. Pre- pare some pieces of toast slightly buttered and hot. Lay a slice of the vegetable marrow on each piece. Warm in butter a little of the sweet-chutney (see ' Pot-Pourri,' page 126), put half a teaspoonful of it on to each sUce, and serve. If vegetable marrows get past being young, let them ripen well, then dry and store them on a shelf in the fruit-house or elsewhere. In winter break one up by hammering a knife through it, clean out the seeds, cut the pieces into small dice half an inch square, boil them with very little salt in cold water till soft, strain them, and make a nice thick white sauce {B&chameVj . Put the marrow in the sauce, add a small piece of sugar, and serve hot. Pumpkins can be treated in the same way. If you have grown the little ridge cucumbers — those recommended in Sutton's book do very well either in a cool house or outside — and have bad any left over in this month, which I never have, this German receipt for pre- serving them — in Germany they always grow them in large quantities — is very useful and good. Cueumlbeps preserved in salt (in a barrel or stone jar). — Pick the outdoor cucumbers when about three inches long and one inch thick. Brush them in a large tub of cold water tiU quite clean. Spread them on a table to dry. Meanwhile boil up a large quantity of water. Measure it carefuUy, and for each quart of water add a V small teacupful of salt and a small teacupful of vinegar. 1^ Boil all well together, and let it get cold. Then put some ^vine-leaves, fennel, tarragon, pimpernel, and a few bay- ^yjpaves and peppercorns at the bottom of a small barrel or •^ stone jar. Place four layers of cucumber, one of herbs and leaves, and so on till full. Cover the top thickly with SEPTEMBER 43 leaves and pour on the salt water till the jar is quite full. Put a clean slate over the top of the jar, and weight it with & stone. They should stand for at least six weeks. A Puree of Vegetables.— A pretty dish can be made with a purde of any kind of green vegetable surrounded by macaroni cut into small pieces, boiled plain with a little onion in the water, drained, and warmed up in a little strong stock (or water), butter, and a little sugar. The New Zealand Spinach or the Spinach Beet is sure to be still quite good in the garden. A friend of mine who has been much in the Bast makes the following comments on my curry receipt and my cooking of rice : ' You say meat in curry is to be cut in dice. An old Indian uncle of mine always taught his cooks to make curries, and there were never better curries ; and he always said. No dice, but thinnish slices about the size of two small mouthfuls. I think he was right.' The Indian uncle also said that rice can never be really properly cooked except in earthenware vessels. I think I agree with both these criticisms. Here is a good receipt for those troubled with a super- abundance of grouse. Grouse Salad. — Select fresh salad material. Place this in a shallow dish on which has been constructed a border of hard-boiled eggs, set off with pieces of anchovies and sliced beetroot. Saiice. — Two tablespoonfuls of eschalots minced small, seven teaspoonfuls of chopped tarragon and chervil, five dessertspoonfuls of pounded sugar, the yolks of two eggs, five saltspoonfuls of pepper and salt mixed, and a very small pinch of cayenne. Mix slowly with twelve or thirteen tablespoonfuls of salad oil and six dessertspoonfuls of chilli vinegar. Add half a pint of whipped cream. The grouse may be roasted or fried. Build up 44 MORE POT-POURRI the grouse tastefully in pyramidal form on the green- stuff, then pour the sauce over the whole, and serve. This receipt for pickled damsons was sent me by one of my very kind readers, with a bottle of the same, which certainly was quite excellent. Pickled Damsons. — Six pounds of damsons, six pounds of sugar, two quarts of vinegar, quarter of an ounce of cinnamon (stick), quarter of an ounce of cloves, one onion (about as large as a nutmeg), half table- spoonful of cayenne tied in muslin, and a little salt. Put all except the damsons into a pan and boU ; then pour the liquid over the fruit, and allow the whole to remain until the next day, when strain it, putting the fruit back into a basin ; boil up the liquid, and pour it over the fruit again. Let the whole stand for another twenty-four hours, and on the third day boU. for four or five minutes. Strain and press through a sieve, to remove the stones and skins. The pickle will then be ready to bottle for use. Both the following receipts are Belgian. The eight stumps of endive make my economical hair stand on end, as the curly endive, which is the one intended, is a very shy grower in this hot soil, and we blanch it rather preciously under boards for November salads. But the broad-leaved Batavian endive is very nearly as good, only it requires longer cooking. Take eight stumps of endive, a good bit of butter (say, the size of two walnuts), a good teaspoonful of flour, half a teacupful of milk, and a little salt. Throw away the bad leaves, cut the others in small pieces tiU near the stump. Wash several times, so that the sand may sink. Let the endive boil in plenty of water with a httle salt for about an hour ; then put it on a sieve to drip out well. Make a sauce of the mUk, flour, and butter, and let it stew for a few minutes. Purslane. — The purslane after being picked and washed is put on a gentle fire to melt, without adding SEPTEMBER 45 any water. When quite soft add some salt (a very little) to taste. If too watery, pour it off; then add butter (a rather larger piece than the size of a walnut), and care- fully mix a well-beaten egg ; or, if this does not suit the taste, bind it with a little flour. Here is an excellent aromatic herb-seasoning which does equally well for use with vegetables or meat. I found it in an old-fashioned book called ' The Gentle- woman,' published in 1864, which I shall notice again further on. The author took this receipt from Francatelli, the famous cook of the day. Take of nutmegs one ounce ; mace, one ounce ; cloves, two ounces ; dried bay-leaves, one ounce; basil, three ounces; marjoram, three ounces ; winter savoury, two ounces ; thyme, three ounces ; cayenne pepper, half an ounce ; grated lemon- peel, half an ounce ; two cloves of garlic. All to be well pulverised in a mortar and sifted through a fine wire sieve, and put away in dry corked bottles. We made this last year, and used it frequently through the winter for flavouring a great many things, such as ptiries of cabbage, preserved French beans, soups, sauces, etc. I reduced the cayenne pepper to half the prescribed quantity. BlaekbePPy Jelly. — Boil the blackberries. Strain them and stiffen with isinglass. This keeps splendidly, and is not too sweet. 46 MORE POT POURRI OCTOBER Gardening — Echeverias — Ignorance about bulbs — Gossamer time and insects— The East Coast— A new rockery — Oxalis floribunda as a vegetable — Previous ' Pot-Pourris ' — Cooking receipts, various —Journey to Frankfort in 1897 — Cronberg — Boecklin's Todten- Insel —Jewish Cemetery — Goethe's house— Staedal Art Institute — German treatment of tuberculosis. October 5th. — The other day I was going round the garden, giving away plants, when I came to a bed where there were several fine Echeverias. They had been planted out to grow naturally into better plants. I offered my friend some, but she said with a shudder : ' What ! those artichoke-looking things ? No, thank you.' I think the dislike of these plants arises very likely from their having been used so much in those old-fashioned beds arranged in fancy designs as ugly and incongruous as the patterns on a Turkish smoking-cap. These plants are not only kind friends that give little trouble, and can be grown in pots and allowed to assume their natural growth, but they are also exceedingly beautiful. I have an Echeveria inetalUca crispa grown to a large plant in a pot. It has been perhaps retarded in its growth by dryness this summer, and is now throwing up a fine pink flower-spike. The whole tone of the plant is lovely to a degree, shot with pale purples, grays, and pinks, and as full of drawing as the cone of an Italian pine. The thick stem is beautifully marked by the leaves as they have dried up and fallen away. The plant is altogether very picturesque in its quaint growth, and OCTOBER 47 admirably adapted for a room or window-sill in late autumn, and reminds one of the corner of a Dutch picture. The Echeverias and Cotyledons are closely allied (natural order CrassulacetB), and there are many varieties of these plants, all requiring much the same treatment — ^protection and very little watering in winter, but otherwise next to no care. They can be increased easily by cuttings at any time, starved and re-potted at will, which alters their flowering-time. They will grow in china pots, with only a few stones for drainage ; or will hang out of Japanese vases, suspended by wires, contain- ing hardly any earth. A large earthenware pan of the ordinary Echeveria glauca is a very pretty sight in summer, and does well in a north window. It can be planted with a little peat, charcoal, and a few stones. I never knew till this year that Marvels of Peru can be kept, like DahUas, free from frost and started the follow- ing spring, when they make much handsomer plants than if grown each year from seed. In gardens where you are pressed for room — and where is it that you are not ? — it is an excellent plan to make a hole in the ground, put some straw at the bottom, and lay in Geraniums, Dahlias, Marvels of Peru, and many other half-hardy things, cover them with straw, and earth up just as you would potatoes or mangolds in a field. October 10th. — It is extraordinary how vague are people's ideas about plants, bulbs, etc. ; and it is not tiU one is asked questions that one realises how much most people have to learn. I was asked the other day by a friend, who had had a lot of Narcissus bulbs given her, if she might plant them in a Tea-rose bed ! That is the last place where they ought to be put, as, if planted in too rich a soil, they all go to leaf and flower badly ; and Eoses are the better for being heavily mulched in the winter and spring. 48 MORE POT-POURRI Mr. Eobert Sydenham, of Tenby Street, Birmingham, publishes a catalogue of bulbs, in which are the clearest possible instructions of how to cultivate them, both in pots and in the open, with an interesting account of his own first experiences. If these instructions are carefully followed, I do not beheve the disappointing failures, so often seen when amateurs try to force bulbs, wiU occur. He also makes it quite plain which are the bulbs that should be planted in poor places and left alone, and those which have to be taken up, dried, and re-planted. Tulips, at least in this soil, require much better feeding than any of the Narcissus tribe, and are certainly the better for taking up and drying after their leaves have thoroughly died dovni. I planted my Eoman Hyacinths according to Mr. Sydenham's directions early in October, and the result was more satisfactory than I have ever had before, and they were in fuU flower by Christmas. It is a very pretty conceit to plant Hyacinths in shallow earthenware or china pans with jaddoo, cocoanut fibre or moss, and place small stones and charcoal at the bottom for the roots to cling to as they grow up. They must be kept very wet. Planted in this way they look much more decorative in the room than when grown in pots or glasses. Any fancy or ornamental vase can be used for the purpose, whether it is fiat or not. Many kind hints have been given me by varioiis correspondents about the growing of Hepaticas. One lady said that small beds with pieces of sandstone were a great help. Another writes as follows : ' I thought you might be glad of certain facts about Hepaticas that have come under my own observation. When a child I lived in Somersetshire, where the soil was heavy clay. The most beautiful show of Hepaticas I ever saw anywhere was a row in an old lady's garden close under a thick hedge of Laures- tinus with a due north aspect. They were single-blue OCTOBER 49 and double-pink. In the same village there was for many years a large clump of double-pink close under a cottage wall with a south-east aspect. That also flowered abundantly, so for double-pink at any rate shade is not essential, though I remember that the late James Backhouse told me many years ago that the Hepaticas did best and flowered earliest with a north aspect, as then they went to sleep sooner in the autumn. The wild ones in Swiss and French woods are always where they would be shaded in summer, and grow with the Primroses. I was also unsuccessful with Hepaticas for many years as long as I grew them on the flat, but when I at last tried them on the shady side of the rockery between the stones the blue ones have done well, the plants increasing in size year by year and flowering abundantly.' I found by my letters that a good many people thought when I did not mention some plants that I either had not got them, or did not care for them, or did not know them. The last was sometimes the case, but I have of course a great many things in the garden, grown in the usual way and doing well, which I did not mention. October 15th. — I suppose there are still some few people who plant trees for their children or grandchildren, although it is rather the fashion to expect gardens and woods to be made in a day, and always to be planting quick-growing things, Scotch Firs being discarded and the ngly-growing Pinus austriaca planted in its stead, etc. One of the loveliest things I know in this neighbourhood is a road running through a Beech-tree copse, planted thickly but varying in depth on each side of the road, The trees when they were young were evidently cut down, as many of them have two or three stems. At all times of the year the drive up this chalk slope is perfectly enchanting — whether in the autumn, when the stems are gray and green against the leaf-strewn ground, rich and golden in so MORE POT-POURRI the slanting sunlight ; or in spring, when the tiny leaves make flickering light and shade ; or in the cool thickness on a summer's day. The fact that nothing grows under beech-wood gives a very distinguished and unusual effect, accustomed as we are to the dull walls of evergreens. For the young who wish to plant a most unusual approach, I can suggest nothing better. The planting along the roads and hedgerows in England of Apples, Cherries and Damsons, would cost no more than any other trees, and would be both orna- mental and useful. These three fruit-trees, once well planted, require no other care. The impression is that the fruit would be stolen, but I believe that to be a matter of custom, and when once people understand that taking fruit is stealing they cease to do it. Growing fruit-trees in open fields is universal on the Continent, and I am told that they are never touched. My love of autumn with its recurring beauty does not dull with age or lonehness, and I am often astonished at the interest that is still so keen about all that surrounds me. Perhaps it ought not to be so, for I find quoted in my notebook the following complaint : How muoli is lost when neither heart nor eye Eose-winged desire or fabling hope deceives ; When boyhood with quick throb has ceased to spy The dubious apple in the yellow leaves ; When, rising from the turf where youth reposed, We find but deserts in the far-sought shore ; When the huge book of fairy-land Ues closed, And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more ! October l&th. — The beautiful gossamer time has come again. Most mothers now cultivate in their children a love of flowers, but it is astonishing how rarely a love of insects is taught. I do not mean a mawkish fear of killing them, for very often they have to be killed. I OCTOBER SI remember a boy who was fond on wet summer days of killing flies on his nursery window. I remonstrated and said it was cruel, upon which he answered: 'Why? Father goes out fishing, and brothers go out shooting ; why may I not kill flies ? ' The only answer that came to my mind was that I could stop the one and I could not the other ; this remained for ever with him as an injustice. But I do think that probably the more children understand and admire, the less they would wish wantonly to kill, and at any rate it might do away with so much of that groundless dread and uncontrollable nervous fear of insects which stick to some people through life. I know some girls who have to leave the room if moths — innocent, soft, downy moths ! — come in, attracted to their doom by the cruel lamp. I know others who dare not pick certain flowers for fear of an earwig, which from its silly name they believe to be really a dangerous enemy. Others, again, will injure their health and remain all through the hot summer nights, perhaps in quite a small room, with window and door closed, for fear of the inroad of some winged wanderer of the darkness. All this seems to me so silly, so ignorant, so unnecessary ! And if children were early introduced to the wonders of insect life — ants, bees, butterflies, moths, etc. — I thiiik they would fear them as little as the ordinary house-fly, which is really more objectionable than many of them. I never cared much for spiders till I heard a most interesting lecture about them, when I longed to know more. The process by which they weave their beautiful webs has only been understood in comparatively recent years. Everyone knows now that the gossamer which covers our commons is spun by spiders. In old days all sorts of fairy traditions hung about it, as it was quite unlike the web of other spiders. The lecturer said that spiders place themselves with their face to the gentle breeze. This carries the thin thread they have power to k2 52 MORE POT-POURRI eject, with its glutinous end, into the air till it reachea some branch or stone or corner of leaf, to which it adheres instantly. When this happens the spider turns quickly round and pulls, like any British tar, with his two front claws till the fairy rope is tight. Then he fixes it and can travel along it, and that is the first stage in the ' weaving,' as the old language puts it, of his beautiful web. Spiders belong to a kingdom ruled by women, and the female eats up the male if she finds him troublesome and unsatisfactory. There is a very good book about British spiders by B. P. Staveley (L. Eeeve & Co.), which would teU all that anyone might want to know about these insects. The first page illustrates spiders' heads, with the varying numbers of eyes the different kinds possess. ' Gleanings in Natural History,' by Edward Jesse, is a book I can indeed recommend to all lovers of natural history. The first edition is dated 'Hampton Court, 1842.' For all of us who live near Hampton Court the book has a double interest, as he was Surveyor of Her Majesty's Parks and Palaces, and lived there, and many of his anecdotes are connected with the neighbourhood. His opening words are : ' One of the chief objects I had in writing the following pages was to portray the character of animals, and to endeavour to excite more kindly feehngs towards them.' It is a kind of half- way book between Gilbert White and the scientific writings of the present day ; and all natural instincts and facts are accounted for in what the most ignorant, since the days of Darwin, would describe as the unscientific language belonging to that date. To my mind, that in no way detracts from the interest of its shrewd observa- tions on the facts of Nature. To name another book in this place, ' Country Pleasures : Chronicle of a Year chiefly in a Garden,' by George Milner, has been lately republished and OCTOBER S3 thoroughly deserves it, as it is one of the best of its kind, and must be an especial favourite vyith all nature lovers. Its charm is of rather a different kind from either of the other tv70. The writing is beautiful, and the quotations are pointed and chosen with literary taste and knowledge. Here are two sentences which I give in order that the charm may be felt. One is dated ' May 22nd,' for the book is arranged in months, which seems to me the only natural system' when speaking of the year's produce •and colour-effects in field, wood, or garden : 'In the present general outburst of vernal foliage we naturally forget that the evergreens, as well as the deciduous trees, are putting forth their new leaves. This is one of those lesser beauties of the spring, easily overlooked, but full of interest when once observed. The •yew-tree now shows itself as a mass of leafage, so dark as to be almost black, but wearing a fringe of yellowish- green ; the box has six or seven bright new leaves at the end of each spray, in sharp contrast with the sombre but 3)olished growth of last year ; the ivy buds are silver-gray, like the willow ; those of the holly are edged with red, and the rhododendron is a light green. In that delight- fully child-Uke carol of Kit Marlowe, which gave such pleasure to the gentle soul of dear old Izaak Walton, the Passionate Shepherd promises to his Love, A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs.' Once every year in the autumn, and sometimes twice, I go to the east coast, and the house is so absolutely oh rthe seashore that this description in ' Country Pleasures ' •exactly suits what I feel when I am there. It is, I think, so good that it may be an inducement for my readers to •get the book for themselves : ' It is often said that the ■sea is both monotonous and melancholy, but the longer 54 MORE POT-POURRI we remain in its close neighbourhood the less are we dis- posed to allow that it is monotonous. Melancholy it may be, as it is fierce or wild or lovely by turns, but it is not monotonous. Eather it is, next to the sky, the most changeful thing we know : and by this I do not mean only the obvious motion and restlessness of the waves, but the more subtle and ever-varying alternation of the whole aspect of the sea. It is usual to suppose that these moods are mainly in the mind of the observer ; but that is not so. The sea, like nature generally, has its own absolute conditions — conditions which prompt and sug- gest, rather than follow, emotions in the mind of man. To feel all this, however, one must live conlamionsly near the sea.' I do not agree that this is really necessary in order to appreciate the sea. I think one does feel all Mr. MOner describes, even if one goes only for a short time, so long as one lives close to the shore, no going out of the house being necessary in order to seethe sea, still less a long walk, which means remaining only a few minutes by the waves. Mr. Milner continues : ' We are so contiguous to the sea here that, looking through the window as I VTrite, I can see nothing but the wide stretch of waters, just as I should if I were sitting in the cabin of a vessel ; and if I stand at the door I can fling a stone into the fringe of the tide. Crossing the road, one step brings me to the shore ; and here you may sit all the day long, with the sea breeze blowing round you and the sound of the water ever in your ears. This sound is usually resolvable into three elements. There is first the great boom of the waves, the chorus of many waters, far and near, heard in one deep unison ; then there is a noise as of liquid being poured continuously out of one vessel into another — that, I think, is caused by the falling crest of the waves ; and lastly, there is a low and lisping talk ever going on between the water and the pebbles.' I call that an ex^ OCTOBER 55 cellent word-rendering of sea-sounds. Then : ' In the pools and tiny basins there are a thousand fairy creatures, whose motions you may watch even as you lie reposing — green and thread-like tentacula issuing and retreating, purple atoms spinning round and round in some strange dance which is the beginning and end of their existence, gorgeous anemones and many a tiny shell, delicately built and cunningly coloured : Slight, to be crush'd with a tap Of my finger-nail on the sand, Small, but a work divine. Frail, but of force to withstand, Year upon year, the shook Of cataract seas that snap The three-decker's oaken spine Athwart the ledges of rock.' In mentioning these books I mean no slight on any that I am not fortunate enough to know. I have kept to the same rule which I found necessary with the old garden-books — of only naming those that I not only know, but possess. October 20th. — I have been very busy here hollowing out new rockeries and digging deep holes, eight to twelve feet deep, and throwing up the sandy earth on either side, so making slopes and mounds of earth. Small narrow paths lead into these hoUows, and instead of catching the water at the bottom, as I did before, I keep the bottom dry, and sink petroleum barrels level with the ground to catch the water as it runs down the paths when rain faUs, or after watering with a hose. In the tall walls of sandy earth every sort of aspect is to be found, little hoUows are made, and all kinds of treasures can be planted on the flat or the slope. By making holes in the sandy walls, and helping to fix the plants with a mixture of cow-dung and clay, they adhere quite well on the steep 56 MORE POT-POURRI slope. On one side of these sunk rockeries, so as still more to keep off the north-east wind, there is a wall about four feet in width and four feet high, built up gradually with pieces of stone and earth between them— no mortar. This makes an excellent cool depth of soil for many precious plants. A small boggy bed can be made, by guiding the rain as it runs away into a hole, anywhere by the sides of paths and where the earth slopes. This immensely increases the effect of rainfall for individual plants, and it is a great help to gardening on sandy soils. The fault of my rockery, unavoidable from the situation, is that it has very little eastern aspect, being shaded in that direction by trees ; and morning sun is what early Alpines require. As the holes approach the large trees, the banks are planted with Ferns, various Ivies, Periwinkles {Vinca), and shade- loving plants. Pernettyas, which are lovely little shrubs, will not do in sun at all ; but in shade they seem to do excellently, and are quite healthy in sandy soil. All those I planted in full sun have simply died this dry year, having been very much parched up. Cotoneaster microphylla, on the contrary, never berries so well or is so satisfactory as in a very dry place luUy exposed to the southern sun. The other day as I was working in this new Alpine garden a caterpillar fell off a tree just in front of me. His head was round ; he had a hairy body, pliunp and thickest in the middle, covered with moderately abundant hairs ; and four square-topped bunches of hair of a pale yeUow colour grew on his back. His head and body were green ; his long, pointed tail bright pink. The spaces between the tufts of hair were deep black. His legs and pro- legs were green. I thought I had got hold of some wonder- ful rare beast, as I had never before found a caterpillar with a pink tail like a horn. A friend to whom I refer all my OCTOBER 57 natural history questions informed me that this was the caterpillar of a moth called the ' Pale Tussock ' because of the tussocks upon his body. The moth is pale gray coloured, with various markings, and is fairly common. He feeds upon most trees, often on Oak, but also on Hazel, Birch, and ^oddly enough — Hops. He will eat Plum and Pear. October 2Brd. — I have found that Crocus speciosus does admirably in this very light soil, and comes up year after year, but is very much better not disturbed, when it decidedly increases. Young plants of variegated Maple look very pretty planted in clumps in front of a shrubbery, especially if backed by small plants of Prunus pissardi. The planting of Eosemary under shrubs, no matter what aspect, has answered perfectly, and in this way I have a lot of the delicious stuff, not only to bum in my own house, tut to give away. October 25th. — We have improved on the cultivation of Watercress in a dry garden by sowing it in a wide trench with the sides supported by two old boards, and close to a tap so that it can be easily watered. In October some of the plants are dug up, put into a box and then placed in a cold frame, so I get fresh Water- cress for tea through the cold weather. In London it is easy to get everything more or less good, but this is not at all the case in the country. What you do not grow you generally have to do without, and even if Watercress can be bought there is the additional advantage of safety in growing it on clean ground instead of buying it out of a dirty ditch, when it often tastes of mud. I find that in Germany the roots of the pink Oxalis floribunda are eaten as a vegetable, and a most excellent vegetable it is. It is not quite hardy. The way to treat it is to take it up about this time of year, eat the big roots, preserve the smaU ones in sand, and re-plant them in the spring. Celeriac and Salsifies are also much better taken S8 MORE POT-POURRI up now and stored in dry sand under cover, like Carrots. They grow old and spotty, if left in the ground in the usual English way. Before cutting down our Asparagus we collect the pretty red seeds, sow them at once very thickly in ordi- nary or fancy china pots, and keep some for later sowing. The seedlings come in well as an ornament in the green- house at Christmas, look green and fresh and refined, and most people do not know what they are. They have the great merit of costing nothing and of being very easy to gtow for anyone who has a warm greenhouse. October 28th. — We are benefiting now by the extra- ordinarily dry autumn and no early frost. The number of flowers in the garden is quite surprising. I picked this morning a large bunch of Nemesia. The Lavenders are flowering a second time, and there are plenty of Tea- roses. The following instructions for growing the TropcBolum, speciosti/m, which has failed here so often, were sent me by a lady : ' The two great needs seem to be moistm-e — but not great moisture — at the roots and dampness of atmosphere round the foliage when in summer growth. These objects are best obtained by — first, in England, or at least in the southern counties, a north wall ; second, by being planted about two feet deep in a trench properly prepared for it; third, by frequently syringing in the summer. I have found a trench a foot wide and a foot and a half deep suit it best. But if the subsoil is clay or a tenacious soil the trench should be made two feet deep, the bottom six inches being filled with drainage — ^pieces of broken stones or brick. The soil with which it is next filled should be peat and ordinary loam in equal propor- tions, with a little sand and leaf-mould thrown in and thoroughly mixed with the whole. Sphagnum cut and chopped into small bits — this retains the moisture, which OCTOBER 59 is as essential as that it should not be stagnant. The young plants should be put in in the autumn preferably to the spring. It is important that the soil in which the roots are growing should vary as little as possible in moistness, never getting dryer at one time than at another.' The two Japanese grasses, Eulalia Japonica {vwriegata and zebrina), do not throw up their flower panicles here qviite early enough to come to perfection, but I learnt last summer that if the cane containing the flower (this is easily distinguished by feeling a certain fulness near the top) is picked and brought into the house the grass will dry; it should then be peeled off and the feathery panicles will display themselves (see illustration in ' English Mower Garden '). They make a pretty and refined winter decoration, and they are just the right size to mix with the red-berried pods of Iris fatidissima. The seed-branches of Montbretias are also a pretty addi- tion to a dry winter bouquet. Plumbago rosea is a very pretty autumn-flowering greenhouse plant. It wants to be grown in a fairly warm house ; but, once in flower, a cool greenhouse seems to suit it well. Its growth is very different from the other Plumbagos, and the pink of its flower is of an unusually beautiful hue. It is not difficult to strike. Eeceipts I have two amusing little books by the same author — kind of ' Pot-Pourris' of the early 'sixties — one called ' Dinners and Dinner Parties ' and the other ' The Gentle- woman.' They are full of good advice and receipts, some of which I think are worth copying, but the chief amuse- ment is to see how the advice they give has grown and spread, and is so much less really wanted than it was 6o MORE POT-POURRI thirty-five years ago. The anonymous writer is ex- tremely sarcastic about the neglect of household duties by women of all classes. Now, perhaps, the absorption in domestic arrangements and refined luxuries is almost carried to the extreme. Most newspapers have menus, and the cookery books are innumerable. One paragraph in ' The Gentlewoman ' is headed ' The Great Evil in England,' and runs as follows : ' The great social evil is not that which is talked of by gentlemen in black at midnight meetings ; but it is the great evil that besets the English from the highest to the lowest. Every man, woman, and child suffers from it, and thousands die or only experience a lingering existence from its neglect. The great social evil is the want of persons of education and practical knowledge worthy to be entrusted in the preparation of food with that care and nicety that is practised in every nation in Europe except England, whereby health would be no longer jeopardised, and twenty millions of money would annually be saved. There would be ample employment for every poor lady who, for the want of domestic knowledge, is doomed to life-long misery.' The writer further complains that ladies do not go to market, that young gentlewomen do not look after their own wardrobes, and is full of compassion for the poor father who has the task of providing a sufficient dowry for each girl. His language must always have been exaggerated, and it is certainly untrue in our day. The ' Stores ' have replaced the old markets, and vrithout doubt ladies, and even gentlemen, do go to them — tire- some places though they are — and the girls of the present day are very few who do not look after and think about their clothes. Fathers still find the same difficulty in providing dowries for their daughters ; but the girls them- selves — among them those who have every right, from the way they have been brought up, to look for dowries — are OCTOBER 6 I now always striving to do some work of their own. The over-strained gentility that my author speaks of does still and must always exist. He touches on too many subjects for me to go on quoting him. But the employ- ments he recommends for women, laying especial stress on nursing, do make one realise the changes and the improve- ments of the last thirty years. All his advice about stores and cooking utensils and general management of the kitchen is excellent. It is carried out far more in the beau- tiful kitchens of modern Germany than anywhere here. He is as strong as even I could wish about the use of earthen- ware casseroles and fireproof dishes. But both servants and mistresses hate them because of the breakage, which of course is very troublesome ; and the excessive heat of our fireplaces makes them more difficult to manage. English servants, too, are so conservative that it is extremely difficult to interfere in any way with their method of work. They only like to do things as they have always been done. On looking over these two books I find the receipts so good and so unUke those in the ordinary cookery book that I shall copy several of them to disperse through the months as they seem to me seasonable. It is often difficult to remember how each generation requires to be told the same things over again. Among other good and useful hints, one is to keep a supply of corks for putting into any bottle that has been opened, so that it can be turned over on its head in the store closet and thus prevent the air from getting to the contents. This ensures your not having to buy a fresh bottle of oil for every third salad, or a fresh bottle of anchovy when you require only a teaspoonful. I am afraid the modern cooks are rare who will take the trouble to attend to such details. This dressing of two chickens in different ways for 62 MORE POT-POURRI one dinner party is rather original, so I copy it out of • The Gentlewoman ' just as it is : 'Two Chickens for Eight Persons.— Abandon the boiled fowl fashion ; order a pair of fowls to be sent without being trussed, and let the heads and necks be sent with them. Cut up one of the fowls into pieces — the leg and thigh into two pieces, the back into three pieces, and the breast into two pieces, which with the merry -thought will be fourteen pieces. ' Take a Spanish onion, cut it up small, put it into a stewpan with two ounces of butter and a little pepper and salt ; let it stew gently for about an hour until it is in a complete pulp. Half an hour before you want it put in the fourteen pieces of chicken, let them stew halt an hour, and when done put into your silver dish a tea- spoonful of Spanish or IVench garlic vinegar, or, if that is not liked, the squeeze of half a lemon, and you will never again want to taste insipid boiled fowl. Mind, it requires no water ; the fowl will be done in its own gravy. ' Cut the other fowl in the same way, viz. fourteen pieces. Let the heads and necks be picked and scalded, stew them in half a pint of water, and when all the goodness is extracted strain off the liquor, put it into a stewpan with a pint of button mushrooms, a little pepper and salt, and put in the fourteen pieces of fowl, stew them until done (about halt an hour), thicken with a little arrowroot. "When you dish them up, put into your silver dish a tablespoonful of mushroom catchup. These two fowls vrill be a variety, will require only the effort of serving, will be enough for eight or ten persons, and each convive will want to taste each dish. ' Pigeons when in season cooked in the same manner are equally good, and make a change — such a change that those who taste it never forget. Grouse and partridges treated the same way are better than roasted. OCTOBER 63 ' A young turkey poult dressed in the same way is a very inviting dish.' Towards the middle of October I buy two or three young turkeys in Suffolk, and feed them here till a fort- night before Christmas. They must be starved twenty- four hours before killing, and require to hang about a fortnight. They should not be plucked or cleaned out till they are going to be cooked. Chervil Soup. — Pick, wash, and chop fine a very large handful of chervil. Melt a piece of butter the size of an egg with two tablespoonfuls of good flour. Stir smooth. Do not let it colour at all ; then add the chervil and let it simmer ten minutes, stirring well. Pour on it sufBcient stock or water (water is quite as good as stock, in my opinion) to make the soup (rather less than more, as one can easily add a drop if too thick). Let it boil half an hour. Just before serving the soup put the yolks of two fresh eggs, one teacupful of milk or cream and a bit of sweet butter, well mixed together and beaten up, into the soup tureen ; pour the boiling soup into this thickening, stirring it well till mixed. The same receipt exactly applies to sorrel Soup. To dress Fresh-water Fish.— Bone the fish and lay it flat in a fireproof dish, with small pieces of butter underneath the fish. Chop half an onion and three or four washed anchovies, brown them in a little butter in a small copper saucepan, pour this mixture all along over the fish. Strew lightly with very dry breadcrumbs grated from a brown roll or the crust of a loaf. Add in the dish a few spoonfuls of good brown sauce, and baste the fish in the oven till cooked. Serve in the fireproof dish in which it was cooked. In Germany they still use fresh-water fish almost as much as they do in France, and obviously for the same reasons. A full account of these reasons is most excel- 64 MORE POT-POURRI lently given in Mrs. Eoundell's ' Practical Cookery Book' under the head of ' Pond Pish.' Sea fish in England is so plentiful that I do not believe, in these days of quick carriage, that fresh-water fish -will ever be again a matter of trade, though even this we cannot say for certain. The fishmongers and fishermen are so absolutely determined to ruin our fish supply by covering it with that injurious chemical, boracic acid, very often before it leaves the coast, that I for one would greatly prefer a freshly netted pond fish. Boracic acid can be easUy recognised, when the fish is cooked, by the purple line that lies along the spine in soles, whiting, haddock, plaice, etc. It is intro- duced under the gill, and I fancy with experience one would soon recognise it even before the fish is cooked. But the use of it is now so universal, alas ! that a young cook can hardly be expected to know what fish looked like without it. I cannot understand why people who possess large places with rivers, lakes, ponds, game- keepers, and in fact every facUity for having fresh-water fish, are yet content to do without so good a variety of food. One reason is that the cooks do not know how to cook it properly, and the mistresses of the house do not take the trouble to teach them. The Izaak Walton receipts are very inadequate, and depend almost entirely for success on cooking the fish the very moment it is taken out of the water. In Ibrance fish that cannot be cooked immediately is always marinaded. (See ' Dainty Dishes.') Mrs. EoundeU entirely does away with the terrible superstition that has always haunted my imagina- tion as a fact, that eels have to be skinned alive as lobsters are boiled alive. She is silent on the subject of lobsters, but with regard to eels she distinctly says : ' Kill them first and skin them afterwards.' Endive. (French receipt.) — Boil the leaves in lots of OCTOBER 65 salt and water, just as if you were doing spinach or cabbage. When tender pour the whole thing on to a large sieve, and as soon as the hot water has drained away put the sieve under a tap and let cold water run on it for some minutes. This applies to the boiling of all green vegetables — cabbages, sorrel, cauliflowers, cos- lettuce, cabbage-lettuce, etc. After the cold water, put the endive on a chopping-board, or if required to be quite smooth as a purde, rub it through a fine hair sieve. In both these cases return it to the fire, after having first put, in a china saucepan, a pat of butter to dissolve with one spoonful of fine flour. Do not put the vegetable in before the butter and flour are well amalgamated. When this is achieved, stir the vegetable well up with the, butter and flour and let it simmer for another fifteen minutes. Add a little cream or milk quite at the last moment, just to make it- soft and pretty. It must not be thicker than a thin pur&e. Endive (in the German way). — Cut up the endive quite coarsely, wash it in lots of cold water, and throw it very wet into an earthenware pot in which a large piece of butter has been dissolved ; no salt nor anything else. Put the lid on and simmer gently for three or four hours. Add salt the last minute, and no flour at all. Canard a la Rouennaise.— Take the fillets of two ducks. Put them into a buttered saut6-pan and poach for five minutes in a good oven. When done cut them out with a cutlet-cutter and spread on one side of each fillet some liver force-meat, then chaud-froid over with some tomato sauce. When set, dish them flat on the entr6e-dish with some aspic, some skinned grapes in the centre, and a grape here and there. Serve with grape salad. Puree of Carrots. — Get some nice red carrots, slice them thin. Add an onion also sliced, a little celery, and a turnip. Braise all together in some weak stock, or 66 MORE POT-POURRI water, until quite tender. Pass the whole through a tammy or hair sieve. About an hour before serving place it in a stewpan over the fire and let it gently simmer to clarify. Season with sugar and salt, and work in a little cream just before serving. Poulet a la Mareng-O.— Have some nice young chickens, cut them up neatly, and put them into a saute- pan with a little salad oil, one onion, a small piece of parsley and thyme ; season with pepper and salt, cover the saut6-pan with the lid, and boil till sufBciently browned. Then add some good brown stock and stew for some time, finish with a good glass of madeira (optional). Dish up with fried eggs round. Pry the eggs in salad oil. Chestnuts au Jus. — Eemove the outer skin and throw the chestnuts into boiling water, to enable you to remove the inner skin as well ; then lay them in cold water while the following mixture is prepared : Stir two tablespoonfuls of sugar into an ounce of butter in a sauce- pan till the sugar is browned, let it boil up, add a little coM water. Put in the chestnuts, simmer till tender, but do not shake them (to avoid crumbling). Just before serving add a few spoonfuls of very good strong glaze. Onions, small turnips, and oxalises can be done in the same way. We find all these equally good without the meat glaze. CeleriaC Salad. — A most excellent autumn salad is celeriac well boiled, cut in slices like beetroot, mixed with a light mayonnaise sauce half oil and half cream, sur- rounded by a wreath of what they call in Germany ' garden-cress,' which is merely the cress we grow in spring in a box, allowed to grow out of doors in summer till about the size of parsley. It grows all the summer through in the garden, and can be cut over and over again. When grown in boxes in the winter it should be allowed to grow on, instead of cutting it quite young. OCTOBER 67 I have always considered salads a strong point with me, and was much amused the other day, when reading Sydney Smith's ' Memoirs ' by his daughter, at the follow- ing description of his experiences with salads. I think his ■receipt so clever that I have extracted it, with the feeling it was better to have it in two books than in only one, so that it may give pleasure to more people. He says : ' Our forte, in the culinary line is our salad. I pique myself on our salads. Saba always dresses them after my recipe. I have put it into verse. Taste it, and if you like it I will give it to you. I was not aware how much it had con- tributed to my reputation till I met Lady at Bowood, who begged to be introduced to me, saying she had so long wished to know me. I was of course highly flattered till she added : " For, Mr. Smith, I have heard so much of your recipe for salads that I was most anxious to obtain it from you." Such and so various are the sources of fame ! To ipake this condiment your poet begs The pounded yellow of two hard-boil'd eggs ; Two boil'd potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, Smoothness and softness to the salad give. Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl And, half-suspected, animate the whole. Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, Distrust the condiment that bites so soon ; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault To add a double quantity of salt. Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca brown, And twice with vinegar procured from town ; And lastly o'er the flavour'd compound toss A magic soupgon ol anchovy sauce. Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat ! 'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat ; Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl I Serenely full, the epicure would ssy, Fate cannot harm me — I have dined to-day.' f2 68 MORE POT-POURRI Fried (German) Pudding-.— To make the batter put two pints of milk to boil with a tiny pinch of salt and two ounces of butter. When boiling, stir in very smoothly eight ounces of finest Hungarian flour. (Use no other flour than Hungarian or Austrian for all sweets and sauces.) Stir till the batter recedes from the sides of the stewpan, then pour it into a dish to get cold. Add six eggs and two spoonfuls of rum, mix gently. Put a deep iron pan full of frying-fat on the fire, but let it get only moderately hot. Fry the batter in round balls in the following way. To make this very German pudding properly, one should have a large tin syringe made speci- ally for the purpose, but in its absence the batter must be taken up by small teaspoonfuls and dropped into the frying-fat. It will form round balls, which should be constantly moved about with a spoon to get them golden- colom'ed all over. When they show little cracks they are sufficiently done. For this method the batter should be made a little stiffer than for the sjrringe by adding a little more flour. Serve with dissolved fruit syrup or custard. Gateau Savarin. — Ingredients : a little less than one pint of milk, six ounces of butter, ten eggs, two ounces of pounded sugar, one pound of good Hungarian flour, sifted grated peel of two lemons, two ounces of good German yeast, a pinch of salt. Put one-fifth part of the flour, the yeast, and the milk together in a deep basin, and work them to a stiff paste ; cover with a cloth, and stand in a tepid place till it swells to double its size. Put all the other ingredients into a much larger basin, mix them very vigorously and thoroughly with the hands for ten minutes, then work into this the first paste with the yeast in it. When all is well incorporated, work it for another fifteen minutes. Fill the tin or earthen- ware Savarin shapes vrith paste to one-third of their height, OCTOBER 69 having first greased them well inside with melted butter. Stand them in a warm place till the paste has risen to the very top. Put them in a rather slow oven for twenty- five to thirty minutes. When well coloured, but not brown, turn them out and pour rum punch over them, taking care not to sodden them. I had occasion at the end of this month last year (1897) to go to Germany to the neighbourhood of Prank- fort. The journey, about twenty-five hours from London, is wonderfully easy. My friends said: 'What! go all that way for ten days ? ' But in fact it means far less time and money than did a journey to Devonshire, or even the Isle of Wight, to our grandmothers. I had never seen the Ehine before in late autumn. The late vintage was just over, and the vines and the earth seemed one even brown, diversified at times with yellow leaves hanging thinly on the poplars, and the low oak brush- wood bronze and gold against the sky. It seems bathos to say so, but the Ehine runs so due north and south that it reminded me of my winter walks in Sloane Street. The sun was always in one's eyes in the middle of the day, and behind the hiUs morning and evening ; and the fogs hung about the river as they do between the houses in the street. How entirely, the Ehine of Turner and Byron has ceased to be ! All the beautiful, picturesque boats, barges, rafts, etc., with white or tan sails, that trailed their long reflections in the broad river, representing the commercial industries of the people, which had been growing from the commencement of history — all this has completely disappeared. On the Main I saw one or two of the old-fashioned large rafts, not towed by steamers, but punted by the graceful little black figures ceaselessly labouring up and down a small portion of the raft and pushing.it with long poles. On the Ehine everything 70 MORE POT-POURRI was towed by steamers of various sizes and kinds. As I sped along in the luxurious railway carriage, and noticed the road beside the river turning and twisting along the bank, I could not but think of the changes since the days when all travelling was done by carriages and lumbering diligences. In Moore's ' Life of Byron,' which I used to think such a delightful book, but which now is somewhat sneered at as unfair book-making by Byron biographers, there is a detailed account of the way the rich and great journeyed at the beginning of the century : ' Lord Byron travelled in a huge coach copied from the celebrated one of Napoleon, taken at Genappe, with additions. Besides a lit de repos it contained a library, a plate chest, and every apparatus for dining in it. It was not, however, found sufficiently capacious for his baggage and suite, and he purchased a caliche at Brussels for his servants.' So travelled the man whom Lady Caroline Lamb attempts to describe, in her famous though duU novel of ' Glenavon,' with the motto : He left a name to all succeeding times Link'd with one viitue and a thousand ciimes. The train sped along and the weather was beautiful. We were not parboiled in the carriages, as they do not warm them before the 1st of November. My friend lived out of Frankfort, on the slopes of the Taunus Mountains, under the towers of the mediseval Castle of Cronberg. Land is not, I fancy, to be bought in Germany except close to the towns ; all the forests belong to the State, and are not sold. I was surprised to find in this delightful home of my Cronberg friends, in the very kingdom of stoves as we consider Germany, that one of the rooms was warmed by an Irish stove, made by Messrs. Musgrave of Bond Street^ exactly like the one I find so invaluable for keeping my own little OCTOBER 71 house at an oven temperature. I cannot imagine why any English house not warmed with hot pipes is ever without one of these stoves. They burn only coke, they require very little stoking, they keep in a very long tinae, and they never unpleasantly dry the air or cause the least smell. I afterwards found that the shops in Frankfort were full of English goods. This is some consolation for us when things we buy are so constantly marked ' made in Germany.' My bedroom at Cronberg looked north and faced a long line of sunlit Taunus Mountains, clothed with oak woods in all their autumn glory. They were intersected with pine woods, which in previous months must have looked dull and dark against the summer green, but in late October they were shining bright against the red gold of the dying woods. They reminded me of one of ' Bethia Hardacre's ' truest touches of colour : Silver, and pearl-white sky, Hills of dim amethyst, Bracken to gold changed by Autumn, the Alchemist. Spikes of bright yellow poplars here and there marked the road as it wound up the hill to lose itself in the silent forest. The walls of my bedroom were hung round with photographs , and prints, remembrances brought back by my cosmopolitan hostess froin various countries* They were most of them known to me, but one print was quite a stranger and very striking. It was of a picture, J was told, by a Swiss artist called Arnold Boecklin, a celebrated man, though unknown to me. On the white margin of the print were written the simple words : Todtm-Insel. The print represents an imaginary burial- place: A high rocky island with a suggestion of big caves in, the rook and windows made by man. In the middle a little open space with tall upright groups of 72 MORE POT-POURRI splendid Italian Cypresses, which seem to be mourn- fully swaying in the wind. Down the rocks on each side tumble somewhat conventional waterfalls into a fathom- less ocean, perhaps meant to be typical of Life and Death. Two white stone posts on each side of a step mark the entrance to this sombre garden of peace and rest. On the foreground of calm water floats a black boat, which approaches this entrance rowed by a solitary dark figure— a realistic Charon. Across the front of the boat lies the dead ; and a radiant, draped, mys- terious mourner, with head bowed over the inevitable sorrow of mankind, stands erect in the middle of the boat. The combination of the horizontal dead fiigure and the upright mourner, in their white draperies, seems to form a shining cross against the deep shade of the Cypresses. This print fascinated me with its eternal facts transcribed into an allegory by a man of genius. The picture from which it is taken is a repHca, with many alterations, of one painted some years ago which I have seen. But, judging from the print, I beheve that the last- painted one is the finest. Certainly the allegorical details in this later one are brought out with greater distinctness. Several of Herr Boecklin's pictures have been bought by his native town of Bale, and later on I wiU describe howl spent a night there on purpose to see them. After my return home I came across an interesting description of Herr Boecklin and his work in a lately published book called ' The History of Modern Painting,' by Eichard Muther, from which the following extract will perhaps make others wish as much as I do to see his pictures. Mr. Muther says of him that : ' He belonged to the very time when Eichard Wagner lured the colours of sound from music with a glow and light such as no master had kindled before Boecklin's symphonies of colour streamed forth like a crashing orchestra. The whole scale, from the OCTOBER 73 most sombre depth to the most chromatic light, was at his command. In his pictures of spring the colour laughs, rejoices, and exults. In the " Isle of the Dead " it seems as though a veil of crSpe were spread over the sea, the sky, and the trees. . . . Many of his pictures have such an ensnaring brilliancy that the eye is never weary of feasting upon their floating splendour. Indeed, later generations wiU probably do him honour as the greatest colour-poet of the century, and at the same time they will learn from his works that at the close of this same unstable century there were complete and healthy human beings. . . . The more modern sentiment became emancipated, the more did artists venture to feel with their own nerves and not with those of earlier genera- tions, and the more it became evident that modern senti- ment is almost always disordered, recklessly despairing, unbelieving, and weary of hfe. Boecklin, the most modem of modern painters, possesses that quaUty of iron health of which modernity knows so little.' To return to my time in Germany. The weather grew cold and foggy, and my expeditions from Cronberg into Frankfort were fewer than I could have wished, and many sights I did not see at all. Among the towns of which I have an early though faint recollection, not even Paris itself is more utterly and entirely changed than Prankfort. Only here and there does anything remain that recalls Goethe's descrip- tion, so familiar to the readers of his ever-enchanting autobiography, that perfect mixture, ' Truth and Poetry.' The Jewish cemetery, full of interest with its unbroken record from the twelfth century, I did not see, though to my mind it must be one of the most interesting spots in Europe. This feeling would only be understood by the English, the awful hatred of the Jews — universal on the Continent — being happily unknown to us. The world 74 MORE POT-POURRI changes so much, and yet so much remains the same. Who would have imagined that at the end of the nineteenth century Jewish persecution would be the same as in the Middle Ages ? If it were possible, would not the gates of the Ghetto be shut in the same cruel and unjust way as years ago ? Hatred of the Jews seems to me the one real bond that unites France, Germany, and Sussia. It is generally attributed to Disraeli, but I believe it was Heine who first said : 'Every nation has the kind of Jew it deserves.' I am told that in this Jewish cemetery at Frankfort the surnames on the tombstones date back in many cases three hundred years. The old graves have generally only a first name (one cannot say Christian name) with a locality mentioned ; as, for instance, ' Hannah of Ham- burg.' The Jews seem to regard this cemetery as an even truer record of their families than we consider our peerage. The Judetigasse has virtually disappeared. I never saw it but once in my childhood, when I felt the same kind of mixed awe and curiosity vrith which Goethe speaks of it. There is a sketch of it in that never-to-be-forgotten volume of our young days, ' The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Eobinson,' by Dickie Doyle. His dramng gives a somewhat spiteful version of it, but it is a funny remembrance of this swept-away quarter. Lewes says Goethe learnt much from the society of the Jews in the strange, old, filthy, but deeply interesting Judengasse. Like him, we have all pondered over ' the sun standing still on Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon.' It was with a genuine thrill that I entered Goethe's house, where he was born, where he lived, where he played and eat and slept and loved Gretchen, and which — angry and disappointed at being described as the boy he really was — he left, with the indifference usual at that OCTOBER 75 age, to seek his fortunes in the world. As he says himself ;, ' At certain epochs children part from parents, seyv^iinta from masters, ^^'oi^fif^s from their patrons ; and whethes it succeed or not, such an attempt to stand on one's oyrn feet, to make one's self independent, to live for one's self, is always in accordance with the will of Nature.' I am so fond of Goethe's sayings that they stick somehow in my mind, in spite of my bad memory. He says somewhere so truly, and it refers to this entrance into life that all have to face : ' Every man has his decoy, and every man is led or misled in a way peculiar to himself.' How frequently Goethe's sayings remind one of Lord John Eussell's apt definition of a , proverb, ' One man's wit and all men's wisdom ' ! Goethe's house in the Hirscligraben is now a museum, bought by the Goethe Society, whose headquarters are at "Weimar, and restored by them with reverent care. Every effort is made to preserve it and what it contains from decay. Such guardians are necessary ; they hold the hand of the destroyer and arrest decay, keeping for posterity what we ourselves highly value. The old house where Luther rested for the night on his way to the Diet of Worms was being levelled to the ground this summer before my eyes, to make room for a handsome entrance , into the courtyard of a large white stucco house. So incongruous was this building to the old sixteenth-century street that had I seen it suddenly I should have said it was a residence, not in Frankfort, but in the Qtmrtifir St. Germain in Paris. I honour all societies that save us from this wholesale destruction of , the pa^t,: In the Goethe house-museum there were , some of . .Goethe's drawings which made me sympathise more than. I had; ever done before with Lewes's somewhat bitter reproaches about the time Goethe wasted on drawing. Lewes says ; 'All his study and all hia practice were vainj he. never 76 MORE POT-POURRI attained even the excellence of an amateur. To think of a Goethe thus obstinately cultivating a branch of art for which he had no talent makes us look with kinder appreciation on the spectacle, so frequently presented, of really able men obstinately devoting themselves to pro- duce poetry no cultivated man can read ; men whose culture and insight are insufficient to make them perceive in themselves the difference between aspiration and in- spiration.' I also went alone to the suburb of Sachsenhausen to see the Staedel Art Institute. Frederick Staedel, in 1816, bequeathed his pictures and engravings and 100,000Z. to his native town. This formed the nucleus of the present gallery. Many pictures have been added since his death, and in many ways the collection is an interesting one. I stood long before a picture which the inscription on the frame told me had been presented by a Baroness Eothschild. Having no catalogue, and feeling shy about asking in German, I neither knew nor guessed what it was or why it was there. It powerfully arrested my atten- tion — a life-sized picture of a man of about forty, sitting in a gray, flowing overcoat, on gray stones in the gray Campagna of Eome. Afterwards I was told that it was the famous picture of Goethe by Johann Eriedrich Tischbein. This painter lived from 1750 to 1812 — that is to say, only a part of the life of Goethe, who was born a year before Tischbein and died in 1832. He therefore was thirty-seven when he wrote in the letters from Italy, December 1786, as follows : ' Latterly I have often ob- served Tischbein attentively regarding me ; and now it appears he has long cherished the idea of painting my portrait. His design is already settled and the canvas stretched. I am to be drawn the size of life, enveloped in a white mantle, and sitting on a fallen obelisk, viewing the ruins of the Campagna di Boma, which are to fill up ! OCTOBER 77 the background of the picture. It will form a beautiful piece, only it will be rather too large for our Northern habitations. I indeed may crawl into them, but the portrait will never be able to enter their door.' This is the exact description of the picture as it now is. Later on, in the letters in February of the following year, Goethe again alludes to the picture : ' The great portrait of myself which Tischbein had taken in hand begins already to stand out from the canvas. The painter has employed a clever statuary to make him a httle model in clay, which is elegantly draperied with the mantle. With this he is working away diligently.' The last fact is curious, as it is exactly the way Meissonier worked a hundred years after. I went to his studio shortly after his death, and saw all his httle clay models of cannons, figures, horses, roads, from which all his highly finished pictures were painted. The Goethe por- trait has a distinct dash of affectation in it, and the whole pose, excusable enough in Goethe, is of a man in the prime of his life who felt himself to be famous and knew himself to be handsome. To our ideas the picture is singularly devoid of colour, almost monochrome ; but it strikes one as very modern in treatment, considering its date, and for every reason it must always remain one of the interesting portraits of the world. In the early part of this century and during the Napoleonic days, when the Eothschilds of Frankfort began to spread themselves through Europe and establish their banking-houses in so many capitals, the son who went to Naples bought this great canvas of Tischbein's. In this way it has ulti- mately found a most fitting home — not in the small house which, Goethe truly said, would not admit it, but on the walls of this museum in his native town. The Staedel Institute has many artistically, interesting pictures most instructive to the student of the old masters, ^8 MORE POT-POURRI both German and Italian. For those who wish to under- stand modem criticism and the altering of long-accepted catalogues attributing pictures to wrong artists I can most strongly recommend ' ItaUan Painters,' by Giovanni MoreUi (John Murray), translated into English by Con- stance Jocelyn Ffoulkes. Giovanni Morelli lived at Bergamo in Lombardy. He left as a legacy to his native town a small but very remarkable collection of pictures, the chief treasures of which are Dutch masterpieces. I imagine the ' Italian Painters ' is almost the root of the kind of modern criticism which has torn from us of the older generation many of the faiths of our youth. Eor instance, the famous Guide's 'Cenci' of the Barberini Palace for more than a century drew tears of pity from the eyes of poets and their followers as being a most tender representation of a famous criminal painted in prison, who, but for this supposed portrait of her, would never have been known to posterity. As a fact she was executed six or seven years before Guido arrived in Eome. Neither is the picture a Guido at all, but a study by some inferior painter of an unknown model. At least, this, I believe, is the last word on the subject. The favourite portrait of Baphael by himself in the Louvre, leaning on his hand, is not a portrait of him, nor is the picture painted by him. The great Holbein at Dresden is said now not to be the original, which is at Darmstadt ; and so on. In this Frankfort gallery there is an extraordinarily fine and interesting female portrait, hitherto attributed to Sebas- tiano del Piombo, but now supposed to bo by Sodoma. It is one of the gems of the collection. Before leaving England last year (1897) I had been immensely interested at hearing of the open-air treat- ment for phthisis as practised in Germany, the parent establishment of which is at Palkenstein, in the Taunus Mountains, close to Cronberg, where I was staying. I OCTOBER 79 wished very much to visit this sanatorium myself, but circumstances rendered it impossible. A good account of it was published just after I came home, in the ' Practitioner ' for November, by Dr. Karl Hess, senior physician to the establishment. It cannot fail to strike us as we walk or drive past the Brompton Hospital, with its airless situation and its closed windows, how hopelessly different its conditions and treat- ment must be from those recommended — and apparently so successfully carried out — at Palkenstein. In Germany twenty sister establishments have been started, and the medical management is supposed to be now so complete against infection that German parents have no fear of send- ing delicate children to these cures, at the age of sixteen or seventeen, to be benefited by the outdoor treatment as % strengthener against the possibility of their catching tuberculosis. At Palkenstein, the parent institution, much meat is insisted on ; but I am told that at Nordrach Dr. Walther now gives very little meat, and sends away patients if they take any stimulant at all. He does cram them, but it is with enormous quantities of milk, cheese, butter, brown bread, and other farinaceous foods. "When I came home from Germany last year I noted three things which I hold to be of the utmost importance, and in which we seemed in England to be decidedly behind other nations. First, I wished to see estab- lished public slaughterhouses, duly inspected, not only in large towns, but in every village where beasts are slaughtered. It seems to me absurd to expect that the man who buys a beast, kills it himself, and counts on ' selling the meat at a profit, should forego his gains solely for the public good. Meat is constantly eaten which is rejected by the Jewish priests, and I believe it is a statistically established fact that Jews have a great immunity from both consumption and cancer. It used 8o MORE POT-POURRI to be supposed that this was because they were of a diflerent race from ourselves. I believe it is because they are much cleaner feeders than we are. Secondly, I would gladly have seen greater intelligence and knowledge on the part of the public as regards the danger to children and invalids who live almost exclu- sively on milk of drinking it unsterilised or unboiled, since one tuberculous cow infects the whole supply, and this is not possible to detect by any analysis of the milk. Thirdly, I wished that the German rational outdoor treatment of consumptive patients, when once they have caught tuberculosis, or are so constituted that they are likely to catch it, should be understood and practised in England. The strides that have been made towards the accom- plishment of these three wishes of mine during the last year is simply astonishing. The newly formed National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, whose office is in Hanover Square, has for its great object to instruct people on the infectiousness of tuberculosis and the best methods of arresting it. Everyone who read the account of the first meeting of this society at Marl- borough House must have been struck with the fact that when the Queen's herd of cows was tested, thirty-six of them were condemned to be slaughtered. A century ago, when first invalids were sent to the Eiviera and Madeira, aU the doctors distinctly taught that the disease was hereditary and not infectious. The natives of these health resorts soon discovered, to their cost, that the disease was infectious ; for it spread amongst the population in the same way as it now has at Davos, , where tuberculosis was formerly unknown. The super- stition, as the doctors of the 'forties thought it, of the peasants round Nice — who held that consumption was really catching — made such an impression on my mother, OCTOBER 8 I whose whole soul was bent on saving her children from the disease of which their father died, that she brought us up on the lines of that belief, and kept us from every- one whom she in any way suspected of being consumptive, even when their complaint may have been but a constitu- tional cough. Perhaps this training is what has made me somewhat sceptical about the medical science of any day being absolutely conclusive. I sometimes think that the im- plicit faith that people are apt to place in doctors may be injurious to the community, and that experience and quackery sometimes turn out to be scientifically truer than the medical theory of the hour. Shocking as many will think the suggestion, I believe this may eventually prove to be the case even with regard to vaccination as a necessary preventive against small-pox epidemics, the great decrease of which may have been effected by many other circumstances. The itch, scurvy, and leprosy have practically also disappeared in England with improved food and cleanliness. Nowadays why should not a case of small-pox be stamped out as the plague was this year in Vienna ? Before Jenner's great discovery, even the most primitive methods of preventing infection were unknown. It is only within the last twenty years that these have been brought to anything like perfection, and only in the last ten years with regard to crowded localities. To return to tuberculosis. In spite of TyndaU's wonderfully clear, instructive, and interesting letters to the ' Times,' published more than twenty years ago, and which explained most thoroughly the infectiousness of consumption, the public have remained curiously ignorant on the subject. . As an illustration of this, a sad case occurred this year not far from here. A signalman who was mortally ill of consumption remained at his work in his signal-box on the line as long as it was possible for G 82 MORE POT-POURRI him to get there. When the day came that he had to give in and remain at home to die, a young and healthy man replaced him in the signal-box, which had in no way been disinfected or whitewashed, and which, from its construction, was a sun-trap and the best dust-and-germ- producer that could be. A cattle-truck would have been differently treated ! The young man caught the disease and died in a few months. I iind in talking even to educated people a con- siderable tone of resentment on this subject. ' What ! ' they say, ' are our consumptives to be treated like lepers ? ' The poetry that hung about consumption in the early days of this sentimental century, its association with the South, with Madeira's orange groves and the sunshine of the Mediterranean, is now not easy to eradicate. The modern cure is stern, rough, and unattractive, and it is difficult at first to believe it to be the best for the hard, hacking cough and hectic flush of the patients. The homeward journey from Germany was much less pleasant than my journey out had been, in con- sequence of the fatal date having come which decides that German railway carriages shall be heated — or, as we English think, over-heated. This causes considerable suffering to those who stupidly, like myself, forget that an almost summer dress is required with plenty of wraps to prevent any chill on leaving the carriage. We passed Coblentz at early winter sunset-time, and I never saw anything more beautiful than all the tones of blues and pearly-grays under a sky spread with wave upon wave of bright pink clouds. Not Turner himself could have come near to the dehcate yet brilliant effect. Skies are fleeting enough, and the waves of rosy clouds quickly disappear, but the despairing swiftness of an express train is the quickest of all ; and in a moment Coblentz, with its towers, its fortress, and its beautiful sunlit sky was out of sight. OCTOBER 83 I do think that if we would enjoy the Ehine in its beauty we must visit it in winter, when we see it as Turner saw it. What a pleasure it is now to go to those rooms on the ground floor of the National Gallery where Turner's sketches are ! I went there again the other day to see the Ehine of one's youth. What a king and creator of Impressionist sketching was Turner in his later manner ! He hfted the hilltops tiU they grew pink in the setting sun, and he trailed the long reflections to fathomless depths in the broad river. And was not the fortress defiantly impregnable in those days, and so rendered by him in those two wonderful pink and yellow and blue Ehrenbreitstein sketches? How quickly and easily all his effects and gradations are produced ! If they were not consummate, we should now call them cheap. I had not seen these rooms in the National Gallery for some years. They are beautifully arranged — so warm, so light, and alas ! so empty. At least, when I was there I wandered alone. How true it is that what we can have always we care for so little, and how we toil as tourists in foreign towns ! It seems rather ridiculous to have brought back from Germany a French poem. But I heard there for the first time one of Tosti's earlier songs, the words of which seemed to me sympathetic and fuU of charm. They are written by a Comtesse de Castellane, and, as they are very Uttle known apart from the music, I quote them here for the benefit of the non-singing world — which, after all, is rather a large one : VOUS ET MOI Vos yeux sereins et purs ont voulu me sourire, Votre main comme une aile a caresse ma main, Mais je ne sais trouver, Mlas I rien k vous dire. Car nous ne marchons pas dans le mSme chemin. 84 MORE POT-POURRI Voua 6tes le soleil d'un beau jour qui commenoe, Et moi la nult profoude et I'horizon couvert ; Vous Stes fleur, 6toile, et joyense cadence, Vous ^tes le printemps, et moi je suis I'hiver I Vous buvez les rayons et respirez les roses, Car vous Stes I'aurore, et moi la fin du jour ; II faut nous dire adieu sans en chercher les causes. Car je suis le regret, et vous §tes I'amour. There are few acts, in my opinion, so blamable and so selfish as an old man marrying a young girl. He under- stands life and she does not, and the responsibiUty rests with him. Of course this does not apply to a woman past thirty who wants a home. 8s NOVEMBEB Present of ' The Botanist ' — Eoheveria and Euphorbia splendens — Cowper on greenhouses — Cultivation of greenhouse plants— Book- seller at Frankfort — Dr. Wallace on Lilies — Receipts — Winter in the country— The sorting of old letters. November 1st. — One of those most pleasant echoes of my first book came to me to-day. I received a letter, addressed to the care of my publisher, from a lady who was so pleased with my commendation of her father's work ('The Botanic Garden,' by B. Maund) that she kindly asked to be allowed to send me, what I had long wished to have, the five volumes of his second book, ' The Botanist ' — a gardening periodical which was published only for five years, as the coloured illustrations were too costly to be continued. The first number was issued in January 1825. It contains full-page illustrations of stove, green- house, and new hardy plants — new, that is, in 1825. I have had it bound, and it is a great addition to my collec- tion of flower-books. The original drawings were chiefly made by Mrs. Withers, who was the first flower-painter of that day. The title-page bears the following inscrip- tion: ' The Botanist : containing Accurately Coloured Figures of Tender and Hardy Ornamental Plants, with Descriptions Scientific and Popular, intended to convey both Moral and Intellectual Gratification.' A quotation is added from Sir J. E. Smith : ' The World seems to have discovered that nothing about which Infinite Wisdom has deigned to 86 MORE POT-POURRI employ itself can, properly speaking, be unworthy of any of its creatures, how lofty soever their pursuits and pretensions may be.' The flowers are beautifully drawn and delicately coloured, one on a page — not on the same principle as ' The Botanic Garden.' But it is as full as that is of interesting information, not the leagt perhaps being the derivation of the names of plants, some of which we use every day. For instance, ' Bcheveria ' is derived from M. Echever, a botanical painter. Euplwrbia spleiidens is an interesting and effective stove-plant. It is a native of Madagascar, and the name it bears in its own country is ' Soongo-Soongo.' It is among the plants one need not fear to buy, as cuttings strike easily under a hand-glass. I mention it, as I bought it last year at a sale not knowing what it was. Oxalis loiuiei I also have, and try to grow it out of doors in a very sheltered placis. Like most of the finer Oxalises, it is a native of the Cape. I was not here, as I have said, in the summer this year ; but when I returned, it looked very dried up and unsatisfactory. This is what William Herbert, the author of ' Amaryllidacea,' before mentioned, says of its cultivation : ' This most beautiful and florid plant is hardy ' (where mine came from it had been out of doors for years) ' and in the open ground will flower in the autumn.' (I expect a bell-glass would greatly help this.) ' But it blossoms most profusely when kept in a pot under glass, especially if, after a short period of rest at midsummer, it is placed in a stove or warm greenhouse for a very short time to make it start freely. Its flowers expand in very moderate temperature. Like all the Oxalises, the flowers are very sensible to light, and only expand thoroughly when the strong clear sunshine falls upon them.' These early-going-to-sleep plants are rather trying, as they never look their best when one wants to show them off in the afternoon. NOVEMBER 87 The stalks or canes of Michaelmas Daisies should be cut down carefuUy, trimmed, and dried, as they make excellent sticks for plants in pots or even out of doors, and are well worth saving. November 3rd. — A lady writes strongly recommending a Tea-rose called ' Ma Capucine.' ' Such lovely red-scarlet buds from June to December,' she says. This I have now ordered. I have moved my white ' Lamarque Eose,' but I cannot get it to do well here. The Dean of Rochester wrote me a most kind letter reproaching me for saying I could not grow Eoses, and implying that the fault is mine. This I know to be true, but the fact is I am so fond of variety in flowers, as in all else, that I grudge too much room in the garden being given to Eoses ; and the attention and hand-picking they require in the spring, when I am very busy with other things, cause them to be neglected. Another correspondent from the north of London wrote that I exaggerated the difficulty of growing Eoses near London. He says he has had good success with his. But then he lives on heavy soil, and that makes an extraordinary difference in their power of resisting their enemies — smoke, blight, etc. This year a Crimson Eambler that failed near a wall (I believe they never do well on walls) has made prodigious growth out in the open. I have cut out the old wood, spread out the long shoots, and tied them down to canes on either side, so as to increase the flowering all along the branches. Underneath is a large bed of ' Mrs. Simpkin ' Pinks, and I think the two together will !)e pretty. November 7th. — I am always being asked about green- house plants, and how to get variety both for picking or for ornamenting a small greenhouse next a room. It has been rather the fashion of late to say : ' Oh ! I don't care for greenhouse plants ; I only like hardy things.' This 88 MORE POT-POURRI surely is a mistake. Cowper, that now-neglected poet, Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too. Unconscious of a less propitious clime, There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug, While the winds whistle and the snows descend. The spiry Myrtle with unwithering leaf Shines there and flourishes. The Golden Boast Of Portugal and Western India there. The ruddier Orange and the paler Lime, Peep through their polish'd foliage at the storm, And seem to smile at what they need not fear. The Amomum there with intermingling flowers And Cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts Her crimson honours, and the spangled Bean, Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long. All plants, of every leaf that can endure The winter's frown if screen'd from its shrewd bite, Live there and prosper. Those Ausonia claims, Levantine regions these ; the Azores send Their Jessamine, her Jessamine remote CafEraria. Foreigners from many lands. They form one social shade, as if convened By magic summons of the Orphean lyre. Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass But by a master's hand, disposing well The gay diversities of leaf and flower. Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms, And dress the regular yet various scene. Plant behind plant aspiring : in the van The dwarfish ; in the rear retired, but still Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand. In spite of ■what I consider the excellent gardening spirit in these lines, how curiously non-poetical they are according to the ideas of our day ! In my edition of Cowper there is a footnote to the word' Ficoides,' explaining it as ' Ice-plant,' which is an annual Mesembrianthemum ; whereas he probably meant some of the perennial flower- ing Mesembrianthemums, which, I think, are beautiful things in a winter greenhouse, in a pot, and hanging from NOVEMBER 89 a shelf. All the same I imagine it would be possible to sow the Ice-plant so late that it might go on growing through the winter in a pot, though its beauty can never be so great as on a broiling-hot summer's day. I agree with every word that Cowper says, and his lines suggest what I want specially to urge on those who pass the winter in the country. Greenhouses were new in Cowper's time and the pleasure of them has probably been wiped out — or, at any rate, greatly diminished — by the way people who can afford such luxuries are now always rushing away in search of sunshine in other chmes, and are content to come back in June and find their flourishing herbaceous borders, that have been asleep under manure all the winter, surpassing in luxuriance of colour and form the gardens of the South. One of the least helpful volumes of the large edition of Mrs. Loudon's ' Lady's Flower Garden ' is the one called ' Ornamental Greenhouse Plants ' — so many things she recommends to grow are now proved to be hardy, and so many others that . we now know to be well worth the trouble of cultivation for flowering in the winter are omitted alto- gether. I know no modern book that quite tells one enough how to keep a small conservatory furnished all the year round. Greenhouse flowers can be most interesting and various, and I propose each month through the winter to name fresh things as they come on and are brought into the small conservatory next my sitting-room. I aro too ignorant to speak of any plants except those I grow The conservatory faces east and south, so it gets what sun there is to be had in winter. I removed the stages that were there, except two shelves close to the glass on the east side. I took up the tiles and dug a bed close to the north wall, which is against the drawing-room chimney, and another bed on the west side of the small square. 90 MORE POT-POURRI These beds make the difference between a greenhouse and a conservatory. When I speak of a bed I mean that, though the floor of the greenhouse is tiled, the plants are planted in the ground. This is very essential in any con- servatory, whether large or small. On the north side, facing south, is planted out what has now grown into a huge plant of Henry Jacobi. It has been there some years, and is cut down very severely about this time every year. Next to it is a quaint plant, one of the Platyceriums, growing on a piece of board hung on the wall, which requires nothing but occasional watering. Below that are two French flower-pots that hang flat against the wall and are fiUed with Maidenhair. A plant of the sweet yellow Jasmine and a plant of pale Heliotrope, both in the ground, are aU the wall will hold on this side. In the middle of the other bed next the west wall, and also planted out, are a large sweet- scented double-white Datura; a white Niphetos Eose, which runs up a pole to the glass roof ; a common Passion- flower, to make shade in summer ; and a blue Plumbago capense. By the side of the door, growing up a vrire, is a dark green Smilax, that has been there for many years and gives no trouble. The other things are in pots, and are con- stantly changed and moved. I grow both Pancretiums and Crinums ; they are indeed worthy of every attention, and ought to be in all carefully selected collections. They are so sweet, so delicate, and so lovely ! — all that we prize most in single flowers. There are a great many kinds of both Pancretiums and Crinums. (See Johnson's ' Gardener's Dictionary.') Even the hardier Crinums in pots requu-e heat at the growing-time, and they often have to be grovm for several years after they are bought before they flower at all ; but, once started, they seem to flower each year. I have a Crinum moorei out of doors which makes its leaves every year, but has not yet flowered. I try to arrange the plants in groups in this conserva- NOVEMBER 91 tory. Whether there are ten plants of one kind, or only two, they are placed together ; and if there are different plants more or less of one colour, they too are massed to- gether. I think this makes the most immense difference in the pleasure to be got out of a greenhouse, and increases the colour-value of everything grown in it, as the power of one plant to kill or injure the colour of another is far more felt in a greenhouse than even in the open border. I have, now flowering, my usual number of the protected Chrysanthemums. They are less good than last year, the wet June and dry August not having suited them. Last year the hardy early outdoor Chrysanthemums were very good indeed ; this year the season has been even harder on them than on the pot-plants. All the same they should be very much grown in all gardens. They transplant quite easily from the reserve garden at any time from August onwards. I have yellow, orange, pink, white, dark red, and a very dark yellow, which seems to last the longest and be the hardiest. Some few cottage gardens have better varieties than I can boast. The great secret for the late-flowering hardy Chrysanthemums is to get them against walls and, still better, under the protection of shrubs. Many of the greenhouse Chrysanthemums will also flower perfectly out of doors, if only planted late in the summer under shrubs, as I have just said. In this way they get a natural protection on cold nights. The last two years I have grown for the greenhouse, in pots, a Michaelmas Daisy that is new to me, called Aster grandiflora. It has a stiff, pretty growth, and is quite hardy ; but it flowers so late that it does not come to perfection out of doors. It looks very well under glass in front of a group of white Chrysanthemums. The flowers are as large as Aster amellus, and of the same colour, which is so different in tone from that of any of the Chrysanthemums. It reminds me a little of Stokesia cyanea, which I used to grow in the 92 MORE POT-POURRI same way ; only that did not stand the moving and pot- ting up nearly so well as this Aster does. I dare say I did not manage it rightly. November &th. — There is a famous seller of old books in Frankfort named Baer. He lives in the Eossmarkt, and some of my best old flower-books I have had from him. I brought home this time one of those books that delight a collector's heart, a really very fine one. I have been told by an artist who saw it here that it must have cost more than 2,0001. to bring it out. The book consists of two elephant folios bound in old stamped white vellum, and bringing them back as a parcel was not exactly easy. There is no letterpress at all in the first volume. It has two handsome frontispieces in the Dutch manner, with Flora and another goddess holding a large straw bee- hive. In the middle is the title, written in Latin and printed on what is supposed to represent a sheet of parchment hung from a classical building with columns on each side. At the bottom is a representation of the Garden of Eden with trees and various animals, all well drawn. Adaai is walldng with the Almighty, who is represented by the figure of an old man surrounded by what in early Italian art is called a mandorla or almond- shaped glory. Miss Hope Eea, in ' Tuscan Artists,' says of this almond-shaped glory : ' In Christian symbohsm and art it is reserved for Christ, and has a profound signification. Though called a mandorla, or almond, it is really intended to represent the form of a fish ; and this, from the days of the Church of the Catacombs, was the accepted symbol of Christ, because the letters of the Greek ichthus^=&.sh, give the initials for the Greek words ' Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour.' Mrs. Jameson, in ' Sacred and Legendary Art,' gives the Latin name, vesica piscis, for the oblong glory surrounding the whole person. She says that it is ' confined to figures of Christ and the Virgin, or Saints NOVEMBER 93 who are in the act of ascending into heaven.' It is, therefore, in ignorance that this German of the early- days of the seventeenth century surrounds the Almighty with this almond-shaped glory instead of a glory round the head. The book is called ' Hortus Eystettensis,' and was brought out in 1613 by Basil Bssler, an apothecary. On each side of the columns are two draped male figures representing Solomon and Cyrus. The whole page is coloured (highly rather than beautifully) by hand ; and the large first volume must contain over three hundred pages, with designs of all kinds of flowers and fruit beautifully drawn and coloured. I believe the book with only out- line representations of the flowers is not very uncommon, but coloured copies are exceedingly rare. In fact, Herr Baer told me he had never seen another. Whether the colouring dates from the time of printing or not it is difficult to say. The paper is beautiful, the whole in excellent condition, and it is a treasure from a collector's point of view. Binders were careless in those days, as one sheet is bound upside down. The second volume is not quite so thick, but the plates are of even greater beauty. It contains a curious copyright, given by;Loui3 XIII., King of Prance and Navarre. The date of the book being 1613, the young king was only twelve years old when he granted this protection to his good servant Basil Besler, who had been put to such great expense in producing his book. November 10th. — I find several of the Japanese Maples so well worth growing and quite hardy , here. They make very little growth, and want dry, sunny, protected places, where they suffer sometimes ifrom drought, but recover by the following year, and are delightful plants. Golden Privet is a very pretty-growing plant when young, out of doors or in pots. It hasj^been much used of late in London in window-boxes. I 94 MORE POT-POURRI have never tried to see i£ it v^ould keep its leaves in a room. November 13th. — I gathered to-day a small but bright, well-grown Oriental Poppy ; and several of the Delphi- niums, cut down in summer, have flowered beautifully a second time. One cannot provide for or be sm'e of these out-of-season garden surprises ; but when they come by chance — some one year, some another — they are very delightful, intaresting, and precious. They are like an unexpected piece of good fortune, or the return of a long- absent friend, who, one thought, had quite forgotten one, and who returns as on the day he left — as friendly, as kind, and as confidential. Such surprises push back for a moment the dial of the clock — a thing not to be despised even as a passing illusion, whether in the late autumn of ' a garden or of life. November 18th. — Two days later than I have ever before remained down here ! It is such beautiful weather. In these mild days the singing of birds comes slightly as a surprise, so different from the silence of August and September. How little one realises during this silence that the birds, thrushes especially, begin to sing now in November, and keep on all through the winter in mild weather till the end of June. The robin did not like the dry season ; he began to sing so late this year. Noveviber 9,0th. — Most people who have gardens wish to grow Lilies, and yet very few are really successful with them. By far the finest I have seen in this part of the world were grown in an Azalea bed, in more than half- shade, and copiously hosed all through the hot dry weather. They were really beautiful. A book called ' Notes on Lilies and their Culture,' by Dr. Wallace of Colchester, has only lately come to my knowledge, and I am quite sure anyone who wishes to grow Lihes will not NOVEMBER 95 get on well without it. It is an admirable book ; in fact, its only fault is that it is so comprehensive one feels, as with most of the specialist gardening books, that the rest of one's life must be spent in trying to understand that one plant. I think there is a good deal to be said for this kind of gardening. As the amateur advances in knowledge he naturally wishes to grow with extra perfection some plants with which everybody cannot succeed. And I think, in the case of small gardens near towns, that it would be a real interest for a man to grow, let us say. Lilies from Dr. Wallace's book, or Irises by the advice of Professor Foster, or Cactuses according to Mr. Watson. This has been done over and over again in the case of Eoses; but rarely, in my experience, with other plants. November 27th. — My principal flower- table in summer ■ is in a cool hall away from the sun. In winter, now that I live here all the year round, I have it in the sitting- room, close to a large south window. The sun in summer quickly kills flowers that are cut and in water, but in vrinter this is not so. On the contrary, it seems to cheer them up and make them open out and look happy. I will describe this flower-table as it stands before me. At the back, in a pot, is a baby Araucaria (Puzzle-monkey). These trees, so ugly when growing on a lawn, are charming in the baby stage. They can be grown from seed, and they do very well in a room. This little tree is raised on a Japanese stand. Beside it is a pot containing a small orchid, Odontoglosswn picturatum, one mass of flowers like yellow Violets. Various Cypripediums are in front in a glass, and Imantophyllums that have stood out all the summer and thrown up a few late autumn flowers ; they are always most effective picked. There are also pieces cut from a bright yellow Coronilla flowering out of doors against a greenhouse wall, a bunch of white Paris Daisies 96 MORE POT-POURRI that were left out to be killed by the frost and are still flourishing, and a bunch of the black berries of the common Privet, which contrast well with a few bright orange Gazanias, also left out to perish early in the year from cold and dryness, but of which we always take cuttings, as it has this great merit of late flowering out of doors. Finally, there is a precious bunch of Neapolitan Violets. For the first hour or two after they are picked I always put a small bell-glass over them, as the warm moisture from condensation under the glass very much increases their sweetness. I do not find it recommended in any of the modern gardening books that I have, but I am sure, if you want your Lilacs to flower well and never assume that weedy choked appearance that they generally have in gardens, it is most important to remove, every winter, the numerous suckers that smTound Lilac bushes. When this is done, it is as well to introduce a little manure round the roots. Eeceipts An excellent winter salad is made by mashing potatoes as if for a purie, and beating them up with a little lukewarm weak stock or warm water instead of milk, and no butter. Then dress them with a little chopped chive, oil and vinegar, pepper and salt. This is good vsdth braised meats or boiled salt beef, and can be endlessly improved and varied by covering it up after it is dressed with chopped hard-boiled eggs, beetroot, cucumbers bottled in vinegar, anchovies, etc., etc. In fact, with these kinds of salads one can give hardly any rule, as imagination and experiments are everything. The ordinary red cabbage makes a very good salad. It must be cut into very fine shreds, then scalded by pouring a large kettle of boiling water over it. When cool, but not cold, it should be NOVEMBER 97 dressed with oil and vinegar, like ordinary salad, covered up, and allowed to stand for two or three hours. Pheasant stuffed with Woodcocks.— The French say : ' To the uninitiated this bird is as a sealed book ; eaten after it has been killed but three days, it is insipid and bad — neither so delicate as a pullet, nor so odoriferous as quail. Cooked at the right moment, the flesh is tender and the flavoiur subUme, partaking equally of the qualities of poultry and game. The moment so necessary to be known and seized on is when decomposition is about to take pl^e. A trifling odour and a change in the coloiu: of the breast are manifested, and great care must be taken not to pluck the bird till it is to be larded and cooked, as the contact of the air will completely neutralise the aroma, consisting of a subtle oil, to which hydrogen is fatal. The bird being larded, the first thing to do is to stuff it, which is effected in the following manner : Provide two woodcocks, bone and divide them into two portions, the one being the flesh, and the other trail, brains, and livers. You then take the flesh and make a forcemeat by chop- ping it up with some beef-marrow cooked by steam, a little rasped bacon, pepper, salt, fine herbs, and so much of the best truffles as will, with the above, quite fill the interior of the pheasant. You must take care to secure this forcemeat in such a manner that it shall not escape, which is sometimes sufficiently difficult if the bird is in an advanced state; however, it is possible to do so in diverse ways, one of which is by fitting a crust of bread and attaching it with a bit of ribbon. Take a slice of bread one-third of an inch thick and two inches wider on each side than the bird when laid on it. Then take the livers, brains, and the trail of the woodcocks ; pound them up with two large truffles, an anchovy, a little rasped bacon, and as much of the finest fresh butter as may seem necessary. Spread then this paste on the toast H 98 MORE POT-POURRI feiqually, and let the pheasant, prepared as above, be roasted over it in such a manner as that the toast may be saturated with the juices that drop during the operation of roasting. "When that is done, serve the pheasant grace- fully laid on its bed (the toast). Garnish with Seville Orange, and be tranquil as to the result.' This extract frota ' Les Classiques de la Table ' (p. 129) I have taken from ' The Gentlewoman.' The gourmets must make haste and try this dish, for fear that woodcocks, which are getting very scarce, should disappear altogether. It is Tather a mystery why they are becoming so rare in England, for they are birds that migrate. It has been suggested as an explanation that sport is now so cosmo- politan, and breech-loading weapons have so favourably handicapped the modem gunner, that the woodcock is being gradually eliminated. Poor Uttle, clever, swift-flying thing, he is' safe nowhere ! Mince-meat for Christmas should be made about the 20th of this month. I think this old Suffolk receipt is better than the one in 'Dainty Dishes' or in Mrs. EoundeU's ' Practical Cookery.' The following directions are for a large quantity, but of course the proportions can be greatly reduced : Two pounds of beef suet finely chopped, two pounds of raisins stoned and chopped, two pounds of currants washed and picked, two pounds of apples chopped fine, one pound and a half of raw beef scraped and chopped fine (every little bit of gristle having first been tetooved), one pound of finely preserved ginger, six lemons (juice and peel), twelve oranges (only the juice), a little salt, one pound and a half of sugar^ a little Spice. Mix well with brandy and sherry to taste. Keep in stone jars in a cool place. German Way of Warming: up Potatoes.— Boil thiem, l6t theim get cold, cut them in thin:> slices into a NOVEMBER 99 fii'eprbof dish, add a little butter and milk, grate some Parmesan cheese on the top, and bake in the oven. Boiled Beef. — Take six to eight pounds of good fat top-side or silver-side, beat it very hard on all sides with a. heavy wooden oak-log to break the fibre. Put it into a deep earthenware pot or copper stewpan, with about five to five and a half quarts of cold water, adding all its bones and all the parings and bones you may have over from the joints, chickens, etc., of previous days. Let it come gently to the boil, remove all the rising scum, then add two leeks, two carrots, half a celeriao, one turnip, and several sprigs of parsley and chervil. Put the lid on so that a small slit remains open. Place it by the side of the fire so that it should not get off the boil, and yet only boil quite gently. Leave to boil for three and a half to four hours from its first boil. Serve with a garnish of the vegetables cooked in the broth and little hors-d'auvre of salted cucumbers, horse-radish grated finely and dressed with oil and vinegar, beetroot salad, cress salad, celeriao salad— in fact, endless variations. It is very good with a plain tomato sauce (Erench system). Minced CoUops. — Pass as much raw lean gravy beef as you require two or three times through a niincing machine. Pry it in about two ounces of butter for a |ew minutes. Add pepper, salt, a little flour, and gravy or water. Let this simmer for about twenty minutes, keeping it well stirred to prevent it getting lumpy. A little minced onion may be fried with the butter, and is a great improvement. This receipt is very useful in wild countries where the meat is hard and bad, and where other food is deficient. How to Dress Cod. — Take some sUces of a small cod, and bake them in the oven in a little butter, with a squeeze of lemon-juice, exactly as you wbiild do salmon. Serve with Tartare Sauce, as in ' Dainty Dishes ' ; only, b2 100 MORE POT-POURRI instead of putting it in a boat, which means a wastefully large quantity, serve it in a little flat dish with a small spoon. Brown bread and butter should also be handed with it. November 21st. — This is the first time in my life that the short days have drawn in shorter and shorter and that I have found myself alone, having to make up my mind that being alone is my future, that my time is at my own disposal, and that I am to live so always, except for occasional visitors, who will grow fewer as time goes on. It is not sad to turn the face towards home, Even though it shows the journey nearly done ; It is not sad to mark the westering sun, Even though we know the night doth come. I do not dread loneliness in itself ; but those who live with one, if they are kind and just, do take their share of the burden of life, and it is hard to have no one to whom one can go vrith those numberless little things which are often big things in Ufe's routine, and that one hides away from those who come in from the outside world as guests, be they ever so near and dear. It is best to keep oneself continually occupied, and one realises that though the end cannot be so very far off, yet the natural love of life is very strong indeed and an immense help. In a little volume of poems called ' lonica,' very well known to a few, but which I believe has not spread to a large pubUc, there are two poems which I think strike singularly sympathetic notes. The four Hnes of 'Eemember,' do they not come home to one with all the tenderness of a message ? Tou come not, as aforetime, to the headstone every day, And I, who died, I do not chide because, my friend, yon play ; Only, in playing, think of him who once was kind and dear, And, if you see a beauteous thing, just say, ' He is not here.' NOVEMBER loi I reverse the position of these poems in the volume, this short one being at the very end, and the following almost in the beginning. I wonder if those who don't know them will like them as much as I do : You promise heavens free trom strife, Pure truth, and perfect change of will ; But sweet, sweet is this human life — So sweet I fain would breathe it still ; Your chilly stars I can forego, This warm kind world is all I know. You say there is no substance here. One great reality above ; Back from that void I shrink in fear, And child-like hide myself in love ; Show me what angels feel. Till then I cling, a mere weak man, to men. You bid me lift my mean desires From faltering lips and fitful veins. To sexless souls, ideal quires. Unwearied voices, wordless strains ; My mind with fonder welcome owns One dear dead friend's remembered tones. Forsooth, the present we must give To that which cannot pass away ; All beauteous things for which we live By laws of time and space decay. But oh, the very reason why I clasp them is because they die. Great grief, like great joy, has a right to be selfish — for a time, at any rate. Everyone recognises this, and in fact wishes to minister to it so long as the selfishness does not extend, as it were, to the grief itself or to a feeling of rebellion against the inevitable, which tends to hardness and paralyses the sympathy of friends and relations. ' To the old sorrow is sorrow, to the young it is despair.' We must not forget this. The highest ideal of how to 102 MORE POT-POURRI receive grief with dignity is admirably expressed in this sonnet by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, though the moraLreaches almost unattainable heights : Count each affliction, vrhethei light or grave, God's messenger sent down to thee ; do thon With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow And, ere his footsteps cross thy threshold, crave Permission first his heavenly feet to lave. Then lay before him all thou hast, allow No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be, Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate. Conforming, cleansing, raising, making free, Strong to control small troubles, to conamand Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. November 3Qth. — A long, gloomy, lonely day. I thought this evening I would look through a large box I have upstairs full of old letters and papers left to me, and which I have always intended to sort at my leisure. They have been there for years, but I have never had time, in the hurry and business of life, even to glance through them. It is an employment that requires rather a pecuHar state of mind, a quiet eddy away from the too rapid swirl of ordinary hfe. Such an occupation must recall to the memory of anyone who has ever read it Professor Max MiiUer's preface to his charming little story called ' German Love,' which was published as long ago as 1877. The little book treats of love — the eternal famihar subject — with that touch of genius that makes originality, and the preface fits so curiously vrith my thoughts to-night that I think I must quote it : ' Who has not once in his life sat down at a desk where shortly before another sat who now rests in the grave? Who has not had to open th^ locks which for long years hid the most sacred secrets of a heart that NOVEMBER 103 now lies hidden in the holy calm of the churchyard'? Here are the letters which were so loved by him whom we all loved so well ; here are pictures and ribbons," and books with marks on every page. Who can now read and decipher them ? Who can gather together the faded and broken leaves of this rose, and endow them once more with living fragrance? The flames which among the Greeks received the body of the departed for fiery destruction — the flames into which the ancients cast everything that had been most dear to the living — are still the safest resting-places for ;such relics. With trembling hesitation the bereaved friend reads the pages which no eye had ever seen, save the one now closed for ever ; and when he has satisfied himself by a rapid glance that these pages and letters contain nothing which the world calls important, he throws them hastily on the, glowing coals ; they flame up, and are gone. ' From such flames the following pages were saved. They were intended at first for the friends only of the lost one; but as they have found friends amongst strangers they may, since so it is to be, wander forth again into the wide world.' I began my task, turned over the old mouldy papers of long, long ago, and came across a bundle of the early love-letters of my father and mother. So long as I live I cannot allow them to be consigned to the flames, as Professor Mas Miiller recommends. They are so simple, so touching and interesting in their old-world language, that my first impulse was to string them together anonymously, adding the httle tale of the love affair as perhaps no one but I could do. But even without names this might possibly have shocked the taste of people who are sensitive on the subject of letters. I am not one of those who object to the publishing of love-letters, given . suffisient time for personal knowledge and recollection of 104 MORE POT-POURRI the writers to have crumbled away. Voltaire said : ' On doit des regards aux vivants : on ne doit aux morts que la v6rit6.' Had I myself written beautiful love-letters in my youth, it would be a pride and joy to me to think that generations unborn should appreciate and enjoy the depths of my devotion, and forgive my weaknesses for the one great reason which will endure for ever, ' because she loved much." A little boy asked : ' Why is every- one called " poor " and " good " when they are put into a box in the ground ? ' I say : What is it all the world for- gives in the future, though at the time society must defend itself by hard judgments and stern morahty ? What we aU think vile and odious, and what shocks all our best sensibility, though it is inevitable, is the publication of even the most commonplace love-letters in the police or divorce courts. But does not love, above everything that we share with our common humanity, belong to aU ? Is it not the most brilliant, glorious possession we have ? Are we not really proud of it even when it is mis- directed ? Is not the perusal of unselfish, passionate, de- voted letters — such as, for instance, Mary WoUstoneoraft's letters to Imlay (a perfectly unworthy object) — a better lesson to women than all the articles, all the lectures, and all the sermons ever preached? And why should we not each of us gain strength through the publication of letters which show the weakness of love in gifted beings like Keats and Shelley ? I cannot see any objection, and with pride and joy would I have given, to those who oared to read it, this interesting Uttle bundle of papers, yellowed by time, and written by my parents in the sunshine of their youth, portraying that nothing really came between the two but that old struggle — difference of opinion on religious subjects — and also showing the confident hope on both sides that love ought to conquer. Time crystallises, to my mind, such material into NOVEMBER 105 biography ; and the more absolutely true biography is, the more interesting it becomes to the public. I have noted down from some book — perhaps Symonds's Life — that ' the first canon in the art of unsophisticated letter-writing is that, just as a speech is intended for hearers rather than for readers, so is a letter meant for the eye of a friend and not for the world. The very essence of good letter- writing is, in truth, the deliberate exclusion of out- siders and the fuU surrender of the vyriter to the spirit of egotism — amicable, free, light-handed, unpretending, harmless, but still egotism. The best letters' are always improvisations, directly or indirectly, about yourself and your correspondent.' Letters of this kind are, in my opinion,. the very ones most worth giving to the public. The man of the world says : ' Burn all letters, and only vrrite insignificant notes with little meaning in them so that there may be nothing for others to keep.' Goethe says : ' Letters are among the most significant memorials a man can leave behind him.' This seems to me true of private individuals, as well as of those who have played a notable or distinguished part on life's stage. But this is not the general opinion^ — to which I, being only a prudent old woman, am content to bow — and once more return to the box this touching, interesting, and characteristic love-story of my father and mother. I find, however, one letter written by my father, and dated 1834, which is so impersonal and so different from the ordinary love-letter to a young girl that I think it can appear an indiscretion to no one that I should publish it. They met for the first time by chance on a summer's afternoon for a little over an hour, and so completely was it love at first sight on his side that he told , my mother afterwards he would gladly have married her there and then had it been possible. She belonged to a Tory family, so bigoted and narrow in their ideas that they could hardly io6 MORE POT-POURRI find a parallel in our day ; and on to this ti?aimng, with heit hatred of worldliness and with all the enthusiasm of her youthful aspirations, she had grafted an almost Method- istical view of the duties of a Christian. His views, on the other hand, were on all points those of an advanced Liberal of the early days of John Stuart Mill. Circum- stances kept them apart for four years, and at the end of three, after an accidental meeting, he wrote her the following letter. With all its humility, one can easily see that his object was the enlightenment of a mind which had been narrowed by its training : ' Sunday night, July 1834. ' Pray do not think I mean to force another letter upon you. Your word is law to me, and I feel too deeply obliged to you for aU you have so kindly and generously risked, in order to afford me the gratification of hearing from you, to think of going myself or endeavouring to force you one step beyond what you think right and proper in this respect. I only wish to say one word upon the two or three books I am venturing to send you. I was delighted with your intention of continuing German, because I am convinced that you will derive great pleasure and benefit from your study of it. It is a language which, from its power of expressing abstract ideas, to say nothing of its structure and the facihty which exists in it of forming endless combinations of words, is of a much higher order than any other European language. It approaches nearest to the Greek, and is no bad substitute to those who have never had an opportunity of studying that language. No foreigner can learn it without acquiring many new ideas and rendering clearer some which he possessed before. There is much, too, in the mind of the Germans as reflected in their literature, the high tone of sentiment in their moral NOVEMBER 107 •writings, and the constant reference to the ideal In theit philosophy, which could not fail to be interesting tod attractive to you. Unfortunately I do not know how far you are advanced in your study of the language, but I think I remember your telling me that you had but just begun it. I have therefore sent you "Klauer's Manual," the best book for self-tuition which has been published, and I have marked in the Index a few of the selections which are perhaps the easiest to begin with. There is this advantage in the book, that should you be so far advanced as not to need the interlinear translation, the selections which are given without it contain some admirable passages from the best authors. Should you be but just beginning I should advise you to learn by heart only the articles, y" five personal pronouns, and ye three auxiliary verbs ; and then, looking over the conjugation of the regular verb, proceed at once to read the pieces in the 1^' vol. in the order in which they are marked, using the S""* vol. (in which they are trans- lated) as the key. You will find the numbers of the pieces in the 2°'^ vol. corresponding with those in the 1''. I have. also sent you a little volume of Schiller's poems, with a few which I hke marked. I should advise you, if any took your fancy, to learn them by heart ; it is an agreeable way of getting into one's mind a great fund of words to be serviceable on all occasions. I had some difficulty in getting you the " Morgen und Abendopfer," but I was anxious that you should have these little poems. They are written by a German clergyman. The poetry is very pretty and simple, and I like them for the cheer- ful view which they take of reUgion. I have also ventured to send you a little book of selections from different authors, principally for the sake of those which have been made from the works of four men whose writings I have often perused with almost unmixed io8 MORE POT-POURRI satisfaction. I mean Jeremy Taylor, South, Bacon, and Milton. I send them to you, not only as samples which will, I think, please you, but in the hope that they will induce you to look further into the works from which they are taken. I had inserted some loose pages con- taining parallel passages and observations upon the text, but think upon the whole it would be to expose you to observation were I to send the book with them in and anybody but yourself happened to look into it. I only send you with it some verses of Southey's which struck me as very pretty, and which I have but lately met with. You can take them out. Taylor is a writer of the greatest eloquence and the most exuberant imagination I am acquainted with in any language. He had at the same time an humble mind, and was thoroughly imbued with a true spirit of Christian charity. South is distinguished for y* vigour and nervous energy of his style and thoughts. He had a thoroughly strong mind — ^too con- fident, however, and uncompromising to admit of his being really tolerant of the opinions of others. His conception of the state of man before the Fall, though it savours of course of y' ideal, is a very remarkable performance. Bacon had a practical mind, and no man perhaps ever so thoroughly mastered the subject of human nature as he did. If you can get his Essays, which are sold almost everywhere, pray read them — or rather, I should say, study them, for they are models of conciseness. Every sentence admits of development. They force one to think for oneself, which is the best service an author can render one. Justice has not been done to Milton's prose works in this little book, but, as they are mostly confined to political subjects, they might not perhaps interest you so much. Milton's mind was not wholly free from bigotry. But I love him for his hatred of tyranny and persecu- tion under every shape, for his unquenchable ardour for NOVEMBER 109 liberty, and his hearty and fearless advocacy of the en- lightenment of mankind. Among his poetical works do you know the " Comus " well? There are parts of it which, I think, he never surpassed. I am sure you must like it. His " Paradise Lost " is indeed a study — a noble and improving one for all who can comprehend his sublime conceptions and the beautiful and powerful language in which he has clothed them. But I must think he was unfortunate in his subject. A lover of pure religion can hardly fail to think that the effect of parts is to degrade and humanise the Divinity. I can hardly conceive that the 3'''^ Book, in which he propounds the mystery of the Eedemption and details its origin, should not be in some degree shocking to a true Christian. The poetry of it is certainly most sublime, but there is on the whole a familiarity in the scene described which makes me think it would have found a fitter place in the writings of a heathen. I had also got you one or two more books, but I am afraid to send them, lest you should think I presume too much upon y^ permission you gave me. One of them was an Essay upon the nature and true value of military glory, and another upon the education of the poor as the best kind of charity we can do them. Depend upon it, it is so ; and all indiscriminate relief, given as it generally is for the selfish purpose of gratify- ing our own benevolence, partakes not of the real nature of Charity, which regards the good of the object ; and while it tends to diminish their own exertions in the present, prevents them from acquiring those habits of providence and self-dependence which in the long run constitute their only chance of respectability and happi- ness. There is no fear the stream of charity will want channels in which to flow, and I also do not believe that its sources are the least likely to be dried up. There are more funds required for education and y* support of some no MORE POT-POURRI kinds of hospitals than will, I fear, ever be supplied. You would find Mrs. Marcet's " Conversations on Political Economy " very useful, and there are some good reasons given in the beginning why ladies should be acquainted with the principles of the science. Let me recommend to you, as connected with your German reading, Madame de Stael's work on Germany. I have derived great pleasure from reading it. And though she occasionally goes out of her depth, and' her facts are not always correct, there is a good deal still of profound reflection and much valuable information in the work. I wiU mention to you a few others of the books which I have most admired. I am not, however, a miscellaneous reader ; I wish I could be ; but I have not a retentive memory, and as reading is to me valuable only in proportion as I retain what I read, I confine my studies as much as possible to those works which I can bear to read over and over again. Of such character is Wordsworth's poetry, and I should be glad if no day elapsed without my read- ing some portion of it. If you have his works with you, pray read the " Euth," the " Laodamia," the " Ode to Duty," " Lines written near Tintern Abbey " (I know nothing more beautiful than this), the " Cumberland Beggar," and a little poem — I think he calls it the " Yew Tree " or the " Yew Tree Seat " (for I have not the book with me) — in which there are some lines beginning, " The man whose eye is ever on himself doth look on one the least of Nature's works," etc. I like Coleridge's poetry but less well. Of all his long pieces I like his translation of Schiller's Wallenstein the best. It is admirable as a poem , while it is perfect as a translation. His " Ancient Mariner " and his " Love " or " GeneviSve " are very beautiful. I hope you will be able to read my friend's play, which my sister told you of.' I longed to send it to you. It is * Philijo van Ar^elde. NOVEMBER iii a worls of genius, and at the same time of great labour. He is a man of humble birth, but of an exalted mind ; and that, I am sure, you will think better than being " some tenth transmitter of a foolish face " ! In religious works I have best liked Butler's " Analogy " and " Sermons," Taylor's and South's sermons, Paley's " Evidences," all Whateley's works — especially his " Eomish Errors " and the " Peculiarities of Christianity " — and Davison on pro- phecy. This is a work which will survive the present day. Its author is- just dead, prematurely. He was a man of great powers of mind, but his health prevented him from sustaining any great intellectual labour. Sumner's " Eecords of the Creation " is a very instructive work as well as a most interesting one. I should like to recommend to you also Southey's " Life of Wesley.'' It is not very easy to get it, but I am sure it would well repay you for reading. Among lighter books, I will mention Scott's " Lives of the Novelists.'' It is not only a very interesting book, but there is a great deal of sound criticism in it — particularly, for, instance, in his lives of Eichardson and Eielding^and it would be well if the generaUty of novel- readers had some fixed and firm certain principles of taste by which to judge of the merits of what- they read. I was much struck, I assure you, with your remarks upon the " Admiral's Daughter " to my sister. The criticism seemed to me as just as it was weU expressed. What I had objected ^o in the work was the intention of placing the man of intellect and of cultivation in unfavourable contrast: with the man of impulse and feeling. You will say that religion made the difference ; but I am not aware that anything which is good in the good man is supposed to arise from the presence of religion. But I will not write you a letter, though I feel as if I could go on for ever. -.No. I fear, for so long as you desire itj all direct communication must cease between us. I doubt not you 112 MORE POT-POURRI are right. Heaven grant that it may be renewed at no distant time and under happy circumstances ! May God for ever bless and protect you 1 ' In 1835 they were married, and had eight short years of great happiness. This was constantly described to me in a way to make a deep impression on a child's mind, and to account for a sentimental vein in me that was perhaps beyond what was usual even in the days when a very different tone was prevalent among girls than at present. Though my recollection of my father was of the faintest, my hero-worship for him amounted almost to idolatry all through my chUdhood. I so venerated the few of his written sayings that my mother brought to my notice that I think they powerfully affected my character. I confess it gave me great pleasure when a few years ago I saw two references to him in a volume of Lady CarUsle's letters written from Paris in 1832. The allusion was in a letter dated ' Paris, September 1st, 1832,' and was as follows : ' Edward Villiers is here, only for one day. He is the image of George ' (his eldest brother), ' only hand- somer and graver. I think him uncommonly pleasing.' The other notice was on November 5th, when the old lady says : ' Edward Villiers is my love. He is dehght- ful, excellent, and interesting. A Villiers without any of the shades.' He died of consumption at Nice in October 1843. In Charles Greville's ' Memoirs ' is the obituary notice which he wrote for the ' Times ' of November 7th. It has a certain Uterary interest, as being so much more personal in tone and more deUberately the act of a friend than is usual in notices of the same kind to-day : ' Last night came intelUgence from Nice that Edward ViUiers was dead. He went there in a hopeless state, was worse after his arrival ; then an abscess broke in his lungs, which gave a momentary gleam of hope, but he NOVEMBER 113 expired very soon after. I had a very great regard for him, and he deserved it. He was a man little known to the world in general — shy, reserved to strangers, cold and rather austere in his manners, and, being very short- sighted, made people think he meant to slight them when he had no such intention. He was not fitted to bustle into public notice, and such ambition as he had was not of the noisy and ostentatious kind. But no man was more beloved by his family and friends, and none could be more agreeable in any society when he was completely at his ease. He was most warm-hearted and affectionate, sincere, obliging, disinterested, unselfish, and of unscrupulous in- tegrity ; by which I mean integrity in the largest sense, not merely that which shrinks from doing a dishonourable or questionable action, but which habitually refers to conscientious principles in every transaction of life. He viewed things with the eye of a philosopher, and aimed at establishing a perfect consistency between his theory and his practice. He had a remarkably acute and searching intellect, with habits of patient investigation and mature deUberation ; his soul was animated by ardent aspirations after the improvement and the happiness of mankind, and he abhorred injustice and oppression, in all their shapes and disguises, with an honest intensity which produced something of a morbid sentiment in his mind and sometimes betrayed him into mistaken impressions and erroneous conclusions. ' The expansive benevolence of his moral sentiments powerfully influenced his political opinions, and his deep sympathy with the poor not only rendered him inexorably severe to the vices of the rich, but made him regard with aversion and distrust the aristocratic elements of our institutions, and rendered him an ardent promoter of the most extensive schemes of progressive reform. But while he clung with inflexible constancy to his own opinions, I 114 MORE POT-POURRI no man was more tolerant of the opinions of others. In conversation he was animated, brilliant, amusing, and profound, bringing sincerity, single-mindedness, and knowledge to bear upon every discussion. His Ufe, though short, uneventful, and retired, was passed in the contem- plation of subjects of interest, and worthiest to occupy the thoughts of a good and wise man ; and the few intimacies he cultivated were with congenial minds, estimable for their moral excellence or distinguished by their intel- lectual quahties and attainments. The world at large will never know what virtues and talents have been prematurely snatched away from it, for those only who have seen Edward Villiers in the unrestraint and un- reserve of domestic familiarity can appreciate the charm of his disposition and the vigour of his understanding. No stranger would have divined that under that cold and grave exterior there lay concealed an exquisite sensibility, the most ardent affections, and a mind fertile in every good and noble quality. To the relations and friends who were devotedly attached to him the loss is irreparable and will long be deplored, and the only consolation which offers itself is to be found in the circumstances of his end. He was surrounded by kind and affectionate friends, and expired in the arms of his wife, whose conduct he himself described to have been that of a heroine as well as an angel. He was in possession of all his faculties, and was free from bodily pain. He died with the cheerfulness of a philosopher and the resignation of a Christian — happy, devout and hopeful, and joyfully contemplating death in an assured faith of a resurrection from the dead.' Only those who have been brought up by a vridowed mother whose whole life had been snapped asunder by such a loss can quite realise how very peculiar and un- like other homes it is. How rare it is to bo perfectly natural under a great NOVEMBER 115 grief ! There is so often an element of self-consciousness, an honest wondering how our attitude will strike others. If we use self-control and try to let life flow in its usual currents, we fear to be thought indifferent, cold, and hard. If once the smallest display of grief becomes in any way a habit, it is difficult to resume again that perfect sincerity of manner which, after all, is the only outward expression of true feeling. A short time ago in 'The Weekly Sun,' in one of Mr. T. P. 0*Connor's wonderful reviews of a Life of Tolstoi, he quotes a passage which is a very vivid picture of self-consciousness in grief. ' Tolstoi describes his visit to his mother's death- chamber : "I could not believe it was her face." How this comes home to us all ! The change made by death, the effort of the brain to recognise that what we see before us is the loved object whom, living, we should instantly have recognised among a milUon. Tolstoi continues : " I looked fixedly at it, and by degrees began to recognise in it the dear familiar features. I shuddered when I did so, and knew that this something was my mother. But why had her closed eyes sunk thus into her head? "Why was she so dreadfully pale ? and why was a dark spot visible through her transparent skin on one of her cheeks ? Why was the expression of her face so stern and so cold ? Why were her lips so bloodless and their lines so fair, so grand? Why did they express such un- earthly calmness that a cold shiver passed through me as I looked at them ? . . . Both before the funeral and after I did not cease to weep and feel melancholy. But I do not like to remember it, because a feeling of self-love mingled with aU its manifestations ; either a desire to show that I was more afflicted than the rest, or thoughts about the impression I produced upon others; or idle curiosity which made me examine Mimi's cap or the faces of those around me." ' The reviewer adds : ' Now l2 n6 MORE POT-POURRI I call this passage morbid.' It may be, but the descrip- tion is extraordinarily true to many under the influence of grief, though they fail to analyse or understand their own mental state. We all say, we all think, we aU know, that ' in the midst of Ufe we are in death ' ; and yet when the blow falls with appalling startlingness on someone who is near to us, how we all must feel — with a piercing, heartrending reahty — ' If I had known ' ! If I had known, loyal heart, When hand to hand we said ' Farewell,' How for all times our paths would part, What shadow o'er our friendship fell, I should have clasped your hand so close In the warm pressure of my own That memory still might keep its grasp — It I had known. If I had known when far and wide We loitered through the summer land What presence wandered by our side, And o'er you stretched its awful hand, I should have hushed my careless speech To listen well to every tone That from your lips fell low and sweet — If I had known. If I had known when your kind eyes Met mine in parting, true and sad — Eyes gravely tender, gently wise, And earnest rather more than glad — How soon the lids would lie above. As cold and white as sculptured stone, I should have treasured every glance — If I had known. If I had known that, until Death Shall with his fingers touch my brow, And still the quickening of the breath That stirs with life's full meaning now, NOVEMBER 117 So long my feet must tread the way Of our accustomed paths alone, I should have prized your presence more — If I had known. Christian Eeed (' Weekly Sun,' 189 ). ' Oil ! the anguish of that thought — that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us and was the divinest thing God had given us to know.' ii8 MORE POT-POURRI DEGEMBEB Lonely evenings and more papers — Figs from France — Hornbeams and Weeping Hornbeams — Wire netting round small fruit-trees — Damsons — Eoman Hyacinths andPaper-whiteNaroissus — Effect of coloured glass on plants— Use of corrugated iron — Lord Lyndoch — Cultivation of Mistletoe — A list of plants — Anniversary present- giving — Christmas decorations — Acetylene gas — The old learning to live alone — Eeceipts. December 1st. — I have been turning out more old letters, and among other papers with other memories and connected with other times I found this fragment of what was evidently intended to be an autobiography of a long Ufe. As a sketch of a little boy's hfe nearly seventy years ago,' with its allusions to foreign lands and customs now nearly extinct, I think it is not entirely devoid of interest. I omit an account given of the vsrriter's family, the story of his father and mother, and his own birth in Switzerland : ' My early youth was passed in many different places, but I have not much recollection of them. One season we had a house in Hereford Street, Park Lane — a site now occupied by Hereford Gardens. I remember cows being milked for purchasers in Hyde Park, and Blacks playing the cymbals in the bands of the Guards. ' When very young we went to Scotland, where my father, who was very devoted to every sort of sport, enjoyed his life immensely. Those days were before the railway period, and an EngUshman in Scotland was a comparatively rare person. ' Whilst I was in Edinburgh I went with my brother DECEMBER 119 Augustus to a large day-school called the Circus Place School. It was attended by boys and girls of every class that could afford to pay the fees, and the little Scotch roughs used rather to bully us two English lads. My dear mother, in her aniiety that we should not catch cold by walking to school in the snow and sitting with wet feet, used to send us there on bad days — of which there were a good many in that abominable climate — in a Sedan chair, the customary conveyance at that time in Edinburgh. I shall never forget the jeers with which we were greeted when, on arriving at the school, the chair was opened by lifting up the top to release the door, and we were shot out spick and span among the crowd of little hardy brats who had trudged with their satchels on their backs through the snow-slush which our mother so dreaded for us ! 'At this time I remember "Pickwick" coming out in monthly numbers and my father's anxiety for their appearance as the month's end approached. •Another subject of recollection is the efforts that were made to get franks for letters from Members of Parlia- ment. The penny postage had not then been invented, and my impression is that a letter to London from Scotland was charged a shilling. I do not know how many franks a day a Member had, but I think there was a Umit. If he did not require his full allowance for his own correspondence he used to oblige his friends by sign- ing his name on an envelope, as a Secretary of State does now, and handing it to his appUoant. It did not seem to occur to anyone that the privilege was given to facihtate a Member's official correspondence, and that handing it on to others was an abuse of it. ' Whilst in Paris Augustus and I attended a little day- school of French boys. It was in a small street some- where near the Eue St. HonorS. The great pumpkins 120 MORE POT-POURRI then so much used in the poorer parts of Paris, exhibited outside the little shops partly out and showing their yellow flesh, are among the recollections of those daily walks to and from school. ' We used to have our midday meal at the school, and I have grim memories of the Friday maigre dinner, with a sour honna femrne soup which did not please our British beef- and mutton-trained appetites. But what do I not owe to the admirable woman who assisted her husband in his educational duties, and who stood over Augustus and myself while with rigorous efforts she endeavoured to convert our pronunciation of the French word for bread from " pang " to " pain " ! How persistent she was, that dear conscientious Frenchwoman ! How often, with repeated and exaggerated aspiration of the final " n," did she drive into our unaccustomed ears the proper sound of that much (by Britons) murdered mono- syllable ! And she succeeded at last, and broke the neck of our initial difficulties in French pronunciation. I think I was nine years old at this time ; but the gloomy little garden, with a horizontal gymnastic pole, and the parallel bars under the one Lime-tree, the whole screened off from the next-door estate by an ivy-covered trellis, are present to my sight. ' I have no recollection whatever of the journey from Paris to Tours. We children, vrith the tutor and servants, must have made it by diligence, and perhaps my remem- brance of it has been obscured by the more vivid impressions of the joys or the sufferings — the difference depending upon which direction I was going in — of the same journey several times performed on my way to and from a school at Paris which I vdll refer to later on. ' The house my father had taken at Tours was called the " Grands Capuoins" — I believe, from being a house of retreat or " pleasaunce " house belonging to a Capuoin DECEMBER 121 monastery. And surely no monks, skilful as they were in the selection of localities, ever chose a more charming spot for a small villa-like residence where they could retire from the austerities and the duties of the convent. ' Situated on the heights which rise on the right bank of the Loire at this point in its course, and immediately over the little faubourg of Tours, St. Symphorien, it commanded an extensive and beautiful view of the river, the town of Tours, and the rich plains to the south watered by the rivers Cher and Indre. The grounds, I fancy, were in extent about five acres, but there were vineyards and other appurtenances belonging to the estate, though not comprised in the lease, which made an almost boundless playground for children, and were so varied by terraces, caves in the side of the hill, and other strange incidents of site, that a great excitement was lent to the games of mimic wars and surprises at which we were constantly playing. There was a large tank under one side of the old house — you descended to it by steps from the garden — and armed with candles, for it was pitch-dark, and provided with planks, we used to embark on its water and navigate the mysterious cavern — an amusement that led to wet feet and friction with Mrs. Hunt, the old nurse, in consequence. ' The front part of the house was modern ; it stood on a platform raised above the large formal garden before it. The boundary of the garden was a terrace-walk looking dowa on the river and the town. There were no steamers, or very few, in those days, and of course no railway; and the long strings of flat-bottomed barges with their great white square sails that carried the merchandise from Nantes up the river when the wind served made a striking feature in the scene. ' There was a wine-press attached to the rambling old house, and the proprietor made his wine from the virie^ 122 MORE POT-POURRI yards every autumn. There was also an old billiard- table, and we used to do a little wine-pressing of our own by putting the bunches of fat black grapes into the net pockets and squeezing the juice into a jug. The fruit of all sorts was magnificent; the greengages, the muscat grapes on the face of the ohS, the gooseberries, straw- berries, currants, and in autumn the walnuts, were splendid objects for youthful greediness, and are matters of hfe-long remembrance to me. ' The grounds and gardens were under the care of a family who resided in a cottage and bore the name of Difete. There were the Pfere and Mfere Diete, good old sabot-wearing peasants who worked in and overlooked the vineyards, while their son Martin attended to the garden. We had a coachman called Joseph, an old cavalry soldier who interested us children vrith his tales of the siege of Antwerp by the French in 1832, and particularly by his account of a cavalry charge in which he took part. The noise of its galloping, he used to say, was like the tonnerre de Dieu. His contempt of the infantry soldier, whom he spoke of as le piou-pvm, was characteristic of the attitude of the dragoon towards the foot-soldier in all armies. ' Augustus and I learnt to swim in the Loire. We used to go out in a punt with a maitre de natation, who hooked us on to a pole by a belt round our waists, and so supported us in the water till we could keep ourselves afloat. We also amused ourselves by saihng a toy-boat in the lagunes and back-waters of the river. One day while so occupied a French lad of about fifteen or sixteen began throwing stones at our cutter. Augustus, who was taller than I and much more daring, rushed at the Frenchman, and after a struggle with him was thrown on the sand. The French lad, who had the best of the wrestle, improved his advantage by taking up handfuls of sand and rubbing it DECEMBER 123 into Augustus's eyes while lie was lying helpless under- neath. A stout stick the French boy had brought with him had fallen in the struggle under Augustus. I, see- ing the position, dragged the stick out from under the combatants, and began belabouring the Frenchman with all my might. This soon converted our defeat into a victory, and the enemy, extricating himself from his antagonist, fled from the field. The lad's father then appeared on the scene and relieved himself by a torrent of abuse. In those days the memories of the old struggles between England and France were still alive among the populace, and we were constantly followed by gamias shouting after us " Goddam Anglish " and other contemptuous expressions. 'During our residence in Touraine Augustus and I went with Mr. Nicholl, the tutor, to visit the old castles of the neighbourhood, and I remember going to Loches, Chinon, Chenonceaux, and Chambord, travelling in the little country diligences. ' In the winter evenings at the " Capuoins " my father used to read Walter Scott's novels to us, and I recall how we looked forward with excitement to the time of resump- tion of the stories. " Quentin Durward " was especially interesting to us, as the scene of a great part of his ad- ventures was within sight of our own house, Plessis les Tours being just across the river. ' On the whole my life at Tours was the part of my youth to which I look back with the greatest pleasure. It has tinged my whole existence with a great love of France and until the experience of late years showed me the childish petulance in political affairs of her people I had a sincere admiration and affection for them. ' The time came at last when I had to go to school. I was eleven years old when my father took me to Paris, to a school for English boys kept by a M. Eosin, a Swiss. It 124 MORE POT-POURRI was established in a fair-sized house with grounds round it, something hke a superior vUla at Putney, near the Arc de Triomphe and to the north of the Champs Elys6es. It was distinguished as No. 15 Avenue Chateaubriand, Quartier Beau j on, and has long since disappeared. The whole region has become the site of the fine hdtels of the magnates of finance who have since the 'Forties peopled the neighbourhood of the Champs Blys^es. When I was at school, the Bois de Boulogne was a scrubby waste. The only road of importance through it from the Arc de Triomphe was that to Neuilly. ' A few sorry hacks and donkeys stood saddled for hire at the fringe of the Bois. There were no houses of any size farther up the Champs Elys6es than the Eond Point, and near the Arc was a waste occupied by the earth thrown out of the road in the levelling operations of its construction. I remember it well, for it was on the heaps resulting from the excavations that we stood one bitterly cold day in the winter of 1840 from 8 a.m. to 1.30 to see the funeral of the great Napoleon pass through the arch on its way down the Champs Elys6es to his burial-place in the crypt of the Invalides. ' Augustus followed me to the same school. I do not think I can have been there more than eighteen months, but it was long enough to have the recollection of the journeyings in the diligence to and from Tours at Christ- mas and at midsummer. Very happy migrations they were on the way home, and very much the reverse on the return to school. ' In the winter my father and mother used to come to Paris, and take an apartment for a time in the Hotel Mirabeau in the Eue de la Paix. And every Saturday while they were there we passed the afternoon and the following day with them, sleeping in the hotel. There was not much of the present luxury of washing at schools DECEMBER 125 in those days. At Eosin's once in three weeks we were marched off to some bains where we could enjoy a good wash in a warm bath and a surreptitious cake of chocolate, provided by the garqon de bains for a con- sideration. So there were great washings on the Saturday nights at the hotel, superintended by our dear mother, after our return from the " Pran9ais," where we were always taken on the Saturday evenings for a lesson in Erench. Eachel was just coming into celebrity, and we sat through the long and, to us, unexciting Eacine plays in which she appeared, rather sleepy after a dinner at a restaurant and an afternoon of exceptional interest, driving about the streets. Those strictly classical plays, in which the three unities are rigidly observed, were very tedious to us boys, and the prospect of an ice at Tortoni's on the way home was more engrossing, I am ashamed to own, than the passionate scenes rendered by the great actress. ' I remember while at Eosin's going sometimes to spend the afternoon and dine at Lord Elgin's, the hero of the Elgin Marbles acquisition. He seemed to me then a very old man, and always sitting at a writing-table in a corner of a large room in their house in the Faubourg St. Germain, while his daughters performed the up-hill duty of trying to amuse me, a stupid, shy boy of eleven. I was also taken out by other friends of my father's, and can recall the intense sleepiness following an unwonted dinner at seven o'clock, before the time came for being packed off in a fiacre to the Avenue Chateaubriand. ' But the time came when Augustus and I, both des- tined for the army, had to prepare, he for Woolwich and I for Sandhurst. It was decided that we should go to a great preparatory school of those days for the military colleges of the Queen's and Bast India Company's ser- vices, kept by Messrs. Stoton and Mayor at "Wimbledon. The school was a large one, and would be thought a 126 MORE POT-POURRI rough one now. The only washing-place was a room on the ground floor, with sinks and leaden basins in them, to which we came down in the morning to wash our hands and faces. There was very httle taught but mathematics for the army boys, and classics for those destined for Haileybury, the East India Company's college for the Indian Civil Service. Copley Eielding taught some boys drawing and water-colour painting. There was also a Erench class, presided over by a poor little old French- man, M. Dell. I never in my life met a being to whom the term " master " was less applicable. The French master at the schools of sixty years ago was not a happy person. He was despised of aU men and boys, and his position was one of such inferiority that no man of any power or spirit was hkely to fill it. Stoton allowed no prize for the French class, and it has been one of the most touching incidents of my life that the poor old Frenchman gave me a little prize which he paid for himself. It was a small edition of Florian's fables. I had it with me for years, but where it has gone to now I know not. It is perhaps buried somewhere among the increased belongings that inheritances and a settled life have accumu- lated about me ; I wish I could find it again. Augustus and I were probably the only boys that had been in France, and certainly the only ones with any pretension to speaking French, and I think the good Uttle man had a predilection for us among the crowd of sneering John Bulls — hating him, his language, and his country — that it was his hard fate to teach. It would be a great delight if I could perform an anachronistic miracle and find him as he then was, to give him a hundred times the value of his poor httle book. ' From Stotou's, at the age of fourteen, I went to the Eoyal Mihtary College at Sandhurst, and Augustus must have gone to the Military Academy at Woolwich about a DECEMBER 127 year later. My father took me to the college, and we slept the night before the entrance examination at the " Tumble-down Dick " inn at Parnborough, which was then the nearest station. The examination was a farce, of course. I suppose they ascertained that one could read and write, and the doctor satisfied himself you were not deformed, but I don't believe it Went much farther.' (Here the fragment ends.) December 5th. — The weather is wonderfuUy mild. I have a bunch of Tea-roses flowering in the room that were picked out of doors yesterday. Have seasons changed, or have the roses? I used to think Owen Meredith's allusion to the rose of October so true : If Sorrow have taught me anything, She hath taught me to weep for you ; And if Falsehood have left me a tear to shed For Truth, these tears are true. If the one star left by the morning Be dear to the dying night, If the late lone rose of October Be sweetest to scent and sight, If the last of the leaves in December ' Be dear to the desolate tree, Eemember, belov'd — remember. How dear is your beauty to me ! December 10th. — I have again been away. At last it is quite winter, and everything is at rest outside. But if all the outdoor Chrysanthemums, or even the hardiest in- door ones, had been moved in October or November into sheltered places under shrubs and trees, or against walls, there has been up to now no frost to hiurt them in such situations. Some that I moved twice this autumn are not feeling it at aU. If Camellias are grown in pots they make far more buds than they can possibly carry, and severe disbudding is most useful. 128 MORE POT-POURRI Outdoor Heaths seem to do better for cutting back after flowering. Just lately I have received from the South of Prance a box of dried figs, not pressed at all, but just dried in the sun, as the peasants eat them. They are delicious, I think; far better than the usual dried figs we get in England, the inside seeds of which as a rule are much too hard. December 11th. — The Hornbeam — one of the old in- digenous trees of England, and among the very best for firewood — is, judging from what I notice, very little planted now and rarely named in catalogues. And yet for many purposes it is useful and beautiful. It stands the knife to any extent, and makes most satisfactory hedges. In my last book I spoke of Pergolas — those covered walks made with poles, or columns of bricks or stone, and overgrown with creepers of all kinds. Now I would speak of the ' Charmilles ' — walks either of turf or gravel covered over ■with arches of growing trees, vnth no supports or wires or wood, merely the interlacing of the boughs tUl they grow thick overhead with continual pruning. There is a little short walk of this kind at Hampton Court — I forget how it is made (I mean, with what trees it is planted) — and in the Boboli Gardens at Elorence there are end- less varieties, as everyone knows, of these covered walks. They would be very beautiful on the north or east side of many a sunny lawn ; and if a garden were too small for such a walk, there might still be room for an occasional self-forming arch, which adds mystery and charm to any garden. It could be made either with Hornbeam, Beech, or (perhaps best of all in light soil) Mountain Ash, which flowers — and berries too — all the better for judicious pruning, and which could make a support as well for Honey- suckle or a climbing Eose. This kind of planting to gain DECEMBER 129 deep shade can be done over a seat, and would not take very long to grow into a natural arbour. A Weeping Hornbeam — which, I suppose, must be a modern garden- ing invention, as it is not mentioned in Loudon's very comprehensive ' Arboretum et Fruticetum ' — is also a splendid tree for a sunny lawn ; and in the plant the long, loose, pendulous catkins are very attractive. The seeds ripen in October, and the bunches or cones which contain them should be gathered by hand when the nuts are ready to drop out. The nuts separate easily from the envelope, and if sown at once will come up the following spring. All this sounds rather slow, for in these days people buy aU they want and never wait. Messrs. Veitch sell both kinds of Hornbeams, and even tall, well- grown plants of the Weeping kind are not expensive. ' Bosquets, or groves, are so called from bouquet, a nosegay; and I believe gardeners never meant any- thing else by giving this term to this compartment, which is a sort of green knot, formed by branches and leaves of trees that compose it placed in rows opposite each other.' The author of ' The Eetired Gardener ' then adds : ' I have named a great many compartments in which Hornbeam is made use of ; yet methinks none of them look so beautiful and magnificent as a gallery with arches.' December IBth. — We have just been digging up and preparing a good-sized oblong piece of ground in the best and sunniest part of the kitchen garden, and moving into it gooseberries and currants — red, white, and black. Bound this I am going to place, after considerable delibera- tion and doubt, a high fine-wire fencing with an open- ing on one side instead of a gate — which reduces the expense — and the opening can be covered when necessary with a net. The reason for not wiring over the top, besides the expense, is that it causes a rather injurious K I30 MORE POT-POURRI drip in rainy weathef and breaks down under the snow. I am also assured by good gardeners that it is unnecessary, and that the ■wire netting round the sides is a most effectual protection to the bushes, as small birds do not fly downwards into a wire-netted enclosure. My gardener is very sceptical on this point, and says he thinks our birds are too clever to be kept out by such half-measures. I think we have an undue share of birds, as on one side of the kitchen garden there is a small copse belonging to a neighbour which has been entirely neglected for years, and presents the appearance of what one would imagine a virgin forest might be. This affords the most extraordinary protection for birds, and bullfinches and greenfinches abound. They not only do harm to the fruit when it is ripe, but they strip the trees of their buds in dry weather in early spring. If this new wire netting answers, I am told we ought to have three times the fruit for a less quantity of bushes. I shall grow white currants on the netting, with battens or sticks fastened to it as a protection from the heat of the zinc wire, which is fatal to everything. The trees are now all whitened with a preparation of lime which is distasteful to the birds and insects. After all this I shall indeed be disappointed if my crop of small fruit is not larger this year. However, a late frost may stiU defeat us altogether. Mr. Wright in his book 'Profitable Fruit-growing' (171 Meet Street, London) has a sentence on the pur- chasing of fruit-trees which is so good I must copy it : ' Krst look to the character and position of the vendors, and deal with those who have reputations to maintain. They cannot afford to sell inferior trees or, what is of vital importance, distribute varieties under wrong names. It is a very serious matter to grow fruit-trees for some years, then when they bear find they are not the sorts DECEMBER 131 ordered, but inferior. Time thus lost cannot be re- gained. Order early in October, and the sooner the trees arrive and are planted after the leaves fall the better they will grow.' He goes on to say, what is equally true, that the best trees are spoilt by bad planting, and it is deplorable to see how roughly the work is often done through lack of knowledge. Every kind of instruction is clearly given by Mr. Wright in this excellent, inexpensive little book, and if read carefully and followed things must go right. I have fallen this year into the so common fault of ordering the little I meant to have too late ; but as they are only a few hardy Damson-trees I hope they will forgive me and do well all the same. Damsons are certainly not cultivated enough, and yet, after Morella Cherries, they make the best of jams, and no fruit-tree gives such big crops for so little outlay. The trees enjoy full exposure, and need hardly any atten- tion, but it is well to remember to stake them securely to prevent strong winds blovnng them about and straining the roots. Our only trouble is the birds, who eat out the buds before they even blossom. Some buds we could spare, but that is not Mr. Bully's way ; if he begins on a tree he completely clears it, as the missel-thrushes do the Eowan berries of summer. Last year they fixed on a Pear-tree that was covered rather early with buds, and in one week every trace and promise of blossom was gone. December lith. — I have a large field in which we have generally grown the coarser kind of vegetables — Potatoes, Cabbages, Jerusalem Artichokes, etc., and such things that do best in a very sunny open place. Finding that now, as I do not go to London, I do not require such a large supply of vegetables, I am going to sow and grass over half the field. It is between this and the. vegetable part that I have been planting the row of 132 MORE POT-POURRI Damson-trees — half common and half cluster, by way of experiment. The BuUaoe, a true cottager's fruit, is a variety of the Damson, and not to be lightly regarded for both preserving and pies. It ripens soon after other Damsons, and so a succession is made. December 15th. — I am told some people have tried and approved of my suggestion of arranging greenhouse Chrysanthemums in groups of colour instead of dotting them about all mixed, one injuring the effect of the other. But I have not yet had the pleasm-e of seeing a large greenhouse so arranged, and I have not room for a great number myself. One of the very best is Abraham Lincoln, with its bushy habit, its grand bluish leaves, and its strong yeUow flowers, which remain a good yellow at night. A charming small but most decorative Chrys- anthemum is called ' Mrs. Carter.' It is pale yellow, white at night, and its growth and appearance are just like those of a Sweet Sultan. I saw the other day a httle Geranium {Pelargonium), called ' New Life,' that was new to me ; the petals were white and red mixed. Growing on the plant, it was not especially pretty ; but picked and mixed with some light green it had quite an uncommon appearance. I thought on first seeing it that it was a double Bouvardia. ' Mrs. Leopold Eothschild ' is a most beautiful pink Carnation. Just now I have several pots in full flower of an orchid that never fails year after year, Lygopetalum mackayi. It does not require much heat, and lasts a long time both on the plant or in water. It throws up long flowering stems, has a most delicious perfume, is quiet in colour — yellowish-green and brownish-purple — and very refined in shape. I find it a most useful plant for the time of year, and we have many more pots than we had, so it is not very difficult to increase. DECEMBER 133 In the corner of the greenhouse there is a good group of Poinsettia pulcherrima. Some people say they do not like these rather curious plants. They are useless for putting into water, but I think they look very bright and cheerful on these dark days. They do best if grown every year from cuttings. December 19th. — We have been more successful this year with the forcing of bulbs — Eoman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus — than ever before, and I think it is a good deal owing to having carefully obeyed the instructions given in a little pamphlet, ' How I came to grow Bulbs,' which I have mentioned before. Mr. Eobert Sydenham is as instructive about pot-culture as he is about outdoor culture. He gives exactly the information required; and if this is carefully read there can be no confusion as regards the different treatment required by Narcissi, Tulips, and Hyacinths. A great many nursery- men profess to sell the Chinese Lily, really a Tazetta Narcissus with a yellow centre, which grows with extreme rapidity in bowls of water ; but instead of the true thing they often send out the Paper-white Narcissus. Late though it is, I have been moving pieces of Xerria ja/ponica and planting them against the bare stems of moderate-sized trees. They do admirably, and look so gay and bright in spring. They can be tied to the trunk for support, and the branches of the tree above protect them from spring frosts. They are most amiable plants, and in no way resent being moved about. The single and variegated Kerrias are not such strong growers as the double. If the latter get to look untidy they can be removed after flowering. I saw a curious account in a newspaper lately about the colour of glass greatly affecting the growth of plants. The discoverer of this theory is Camille Flammarion, the Erench astronomer. He has found that plants grown in 134 MORE POT-POURRI a red hot-house become in a given time four times as big as those exposed to ordinary sunlight. The poorest development, practically amounting to failure, was under blue glass; and lettuces grovm under green glass did badly. It would be interesting to try experiments. I wonder if it would answer to colour red the stuff sold for painting the glass of greenhouses as a shade in summer ? We have done a great deal of pruning this year of our old Apple-trees, sawing out large branches in the middle to let in air. The trees have been shortened back so much that they bear far too many apples, and none come to any size. December 18th. — We have never been very successful here with the grovring of Mushrooms. We have no Mush- room house, and have to try what can be done in various sheds and outhouses. I am told the most essential point to remember is that the horses must have no green food or carrots during the time that the droppings are being collected. My own belief is that our beds have been kept too dry, and that this is the reason of our failure, in spite of making up the beds with the greatest care according to the directions in the excellent little books which are sold everywhere, and which always represent mushroom culture as the easiest thing in the world. Also it may be that when the beds were watered it was not with rain-water. Our soil is so sandy that even when mixed with anything that is put to it, it dries more easily than any ordinary garden soil. This winter my gardener has tried, with marked and satisfactory success, a bed under the greenhouse stage. It is made up in the ordinary way, and darkened and saved from the drip of the plants above by a sheet or two of that invaluable corrugated iron which I mentioned before, and which I find more and more useful for protection at night, protection for pot-plants DECEMBER 135 in spring, keeping the wet out of sunk pits, shading summer cuttings effeotualiy, and so on. It also makes an excellent though ugly paling instead of a wall. Even Peach-trees will grow well against it if the plants are tied to pieces of batten or sticks — some stuck into the ground and the branches tied horizontally from stick to stick, and some put across the zinc — as then the plant, be it Peach or Vine, enjoys the heat radiated from the zinc, which yet cannot burn or injuriously dry the bark, in summer. In winter it is still more important that air should be between the plant and the zinc, which gets extremely cold in frosty weather. This, of course, applies equally to covering zinc houses or sheds with creepers. This is a long digression from the Mushroom bed. We have already had several excellent and useful dishes off it from this the first experiment. Our outer cellar is too cold here to grow Mushrooms in winter, though it does well to grow the common Chicory for the Ba/rhe- de-Capiicin salad, and also protects from early autumn frosts the Broad-leaved Batavian Endive, which does so infinitely better here than the Cm-led Endive. We grow this in large quantities. It makes by far the best late autumn salad, and is also quite excellent stewed. (See ' Dainty Dishes.') We have not yet succeeded here with the vegetable now so much sold in London in the early spring, viz. Witloof or Large Brussels Chicory, but I mean to try this next year. I went to lunch to-day with a neighbour whose house is fuU of things recalling memories which belong to other days. As we sat at luncheon I began to gaze, as I in- variably do, at whatever hangs on the walls, and I am always thankful when I have not to look at photographs. I have plenty of these nayself, but they are the least decorative of furnishing pictures. On the wall opposite 136 MORE POT-POURRI to me was rather an uncommon print of the Duke of Wellington, looking more than usually martial and stand-upright, and with an extra severe thundercloud behind him. It was from a picture by Lawrence, I expect, and a fine thing in its way. As a pendant to this was another print of a soldier. I turned to my hostess and, pointing to it, said: 'Who is that?' My friend answered with rather a marked tone : ' Why, that is Lord Lyndoch,' as if most certainly I ought to have knovm. Now, frankly, I had never heard of Lord Lyndoch, so I said rather humbly and inquiringly: 'Peninsula, I suppose ? But I am very badly read ; who was he ? ' And then she told me : ' Why, the Grahame who went to the wars after his wife's death, as you describe in your book in speaking of young Mrs. Grahame's picture in the Edinburgh Gallery.' She added : ' He was on Sir John Moore's staff and standing close by his horse when he was wounded at Corunna, and Sir John Moore was carried into Mr. Grahame's tent or hut, where he shortly died, and the poor young man was so utterly exhausted he lay on the floor by his dead friend and slept.' She told me that Lord Lyndoch was a known feature in society and a visitor in country houses in her youth, and she remembered him well at her grandmother's house in Hertfordshire. December l^th. — The weather has been so astonishing the last few days one cannot realise it is the week, not of the shortest days, but of the shortest afternoons of the whole year. This sentence brought about a fearful cool- ness between me and my dear secretary, who asked for an explanation of the statement, and, when I tried to give it, failed to understand. We agreed to refer the matter to an authority that we both believed in. The next day brought the following reply : ' The explanation you require is,|^I think, hardly suited to " Pot-Pourri." I should DECEMBER 137 put it somehow thus : " that week in which the almanack tells us the days are growing shorter, though the sun sets at a later hour." Of course the aitemoon does not grow longer. Noon is the moment at which the sun crosses the meridian, audit then attains its highest point for the day ; and of course if it rises later, it also sets earlier. The apparent anomaly occurs thus — the solar day, which is measured from the time the sun crosses the meridian on one day to the time it does ditto on the next, is not of uniform length. The reasons — which you need not read — are : (1) The path of the sun does not lie in the equator, but in the ecliptic ; (2) owing to the earth's orbit not being circular, its motion in the ecliptic is not uniform, Now it would manifestly be very uncomfortable to have days of varying length, therefore an imaginary sun has been in- vented which is supposed to behave in a decent and orderly fashion ; the time by him is called " mean time," and is that shown by a watch. The time shown by the xeal sun is called " apparent time," and is that shown by a sun-dial. The difference between these two times is as much as sixteen minutes at certain seasons of the year. Now on the shortest day the sun'crosses the meridian nearly two minutes before twelve o'clock. He was earlier the few days before, therefore his time of setting was earlier too. Suppose that on December 21st apparent noon is at 11.58 A.M. and the sun sets at 3.51 p.m., and on Decem- ber 14th the apparent noon is at 11.55 a.m. and the sun sets at 3.49 p.m. Now the aiteiiwmi on December 14th is one minute longer than on December 21st (3 hours 54 minutes to 3 hours 53 minutes), and yet the sun has set two minutes earlier (by our watches).' December 20th. — Another beautiful afternoon. Such clear yellow skies ! To me the top twigs of Holly bushes against a primrose sky recall, oh ! so many winter days in ,the past; long walks through bare woods and rustling 138 MORE POT-POURRI brown leaves beneath our feet ; the closing-in of curtains in the warm fire-lit rooms where we grew up, which in old age I see as plainly as if I had never left the house where I was born. But to return to the weather of this year, the following was in a newspaper a day or two ago : ' A beautiful yellow butterfly was seen disporting itself in the sunshine of yesterday.' I did not see a butterfly here, but Chrysanthemums still linger, Violets are out, and the yellow Jasminium nudiflorum is in unusually full flower. I have no Mistletoe here, but I presume I might have it if I cultivated it. It no doubt has become so much rarer from being always cleared out of orchards, the pretty pale-fruited parasite being no friend to the Apple- trees. If one wishes to cultivate the Mistletoe, select a young branch of Willow, Poplar, Thorn, or an old Apple- or Pear-tree, and on the underside sUt the bark to insert the seed. The best time to do this is in February. One may merely rub a few seeds on the outside of the bark, but that is not so safe as inserting them actually under the bark. Eaising Mistletoe from seed is better than either grafting or budding. This is a good time for planting Ivies. There are many different kinds, and they will grow in such a satis- factory way in such bad places. In London gardens or back-yards Ivy can be made into quite a feature. As Curtis says in his ' Flora Londinensis ' : ' Few people are acquainted with the beauty of Ivy when suffered to run up a stake, and at length to form itself into a standard ; the singular complication of its branches and the vivid hue of its leaves give it one of the first places amongst evergreens in a shrubbery.' My Lancashire friend sends me a list of a few Eoses and annuals. Lists are always so useful to all gardeners, as it is interesting to know what one has got and what DECEMBER 139 one has not, that I give his list as he wrote it : 'To begin with Eoses. Kaiserin Augusta Victoria; Allister Stella Gray, climber ; Gustave Eegis ; Maman Cochet, have done beat with me. Adonis autumnalis ; Alonsoa Warscewiczi ; Kcmlfiissia amelloides, are three annuals new to me. Aois autumnalis is a small South of Europe bulb, rare and sup- posed to thrive out of doors in sandy soil. Gimicifuga racemosa — I think all borders ought to have this tall-grow- ing, handsome herbaceous plant; Dictamnus fraxinella and its white variety; Eupatoriuni purjpureum ; OypsopMla prostrata; Phygelius capensis ; Polemonium Bichardsoni ; Budheckia purpurea ; Spigelia Marilandica ; Styrax jap- onica ; Thalictrum flavum. Withe7iia origanifoUa is a new, very highly praised creeper which I shall try.' I cannot find this creeper mentioned in any of my gardening books. Phormium tenax (the New Zealand Max) makes a very handsome tub plant for a bare entrance drive or large terrace. If treated like the Agapanthus in full sun it flowers. Two or three years ago, when I knew nothing about Eoses, a very clever Eose grower, who had devoted his hfe to them, wrote me out the following list, with the assurance that every one of them was worth having : ' A selection of Eoses which, in ground well dug and liber- ally fed with farmyard manure, sheltered but not over- shadowed, like Phyllis, " never fail to please." Hybrid Perpetuals : Duke of Edinburgh ; Btienne Levet ; General Jacqueminot ; Her Majesty ; Jules Margottin ; Marguerite Dickson; Mrs. John Laing; Merveille de Lyons ; Paul Neron ; Ulrich Brunner. Hybrid Teas : Captain Christy ; Grace Darling ; Gustave Eegis ; Lady Mary EitzwiUiam ; La France ; Vicomtesse Folkestone ; Caroline Testout. Teas : Anna Ollivier ; Bouquet d'Or ; Hom^re ; Madame de Watteville ; Madame Ealcot ; 140 MORE POT-POURRI Madame Host6 ; Marie Van Houtte ; Perles des Jardins. Polyantha : Cecils Brunner ; Perle d'Or.' I have a near neighbour who is a most successful Eose grower. Walking through his beautifully kept beds the other day, I noted that the centre parts of the plant, both in standards and dwarfs, had some bracken twisted into them. This is a great protection against the coming frosts. For anyone who cares about the choicer Perns it is a protection to them, too, to have their own leaves twisted round them in the shape of a knob of hair on a woman's head, firmly tucking in the ends so that the winds of March may not untwist them. December 21si. — The perennial and ever-recurrent aspect of the London streets at this time of year always reminds me of the old happy Christmas hoUdays and of long walks with three young gentlemen lately returned home, who then considered it my chief defect that I had not three arms. The mental attitude which I tried to instil into them was to enjoy looking in at the shop- windows rather than to admire or, above all, wish to possess the extraordinary amount of rubbish displayed inside, which, though it looked well enough arranged in redundant heaps, would, I thought, seem to them mere money wasted in poor useless stuff if they brought it home. I dare say I am prejudiced in these matters, having always had a very great disUke to wholesale present- giving at fixed anniversaries, whether birthdays, Christmas, or New Year. I think that while children are quite small — say, up to the age of ten or twelve — we might leave the matter as it stands at present, as the said redundant heap on the nursery floor may give a pecuUar pleasure of its own. But this is quite different from an obUgatory present-giving to all sorts of people : servants and dependents, grown-up children, fathers, mothers, and old grannies. We all know houses where this kind of thing is much practised. DECEMBER 141 and where year after year it is an immense toil to the givers and but very little appreciated by the receivers. It is almost laughable, the v^ay that people v^ho are apparently the greatest supporters of this custom of present-giving at stated times groan over the trouble and expense it entails, and congratulate themselves and each other when the terrible Christmas fortnight is at an end. This fashion of giving presents to all sorts of promiscuous people at special times has immensely increased since my childhood, when it was only beginning — imported no doubt, as far as Christmas is concerned from Germany. The Erench, who keep their rubbish- giving for the New Year, confine themselves almost entirely to flowers and bonbons, which, if equally useless, have at least the merit of passing away and of not crowding up our chimneypieces and writing-tables. The turning of every shop into a bazaar ; the display of meat, game, and turkeys on the outside of shops ; the spending of a disproportionate amount of money on feasting — all this is comparatively recent. I can quite well remember as a girl the excitement of first decorating a chm'ch. This developed into a fashion with the High Church party, and is not an old custom. I know one old clergyman who to this day refuses to allow any Christmas decorations, and says : 'Why desecrate my church with evergreens?' If it has any antiquity it is a Pagan revival, like flowers for the dead. It may be pretty and desirable, or the contrary, but it is not Old English, though the Druids may have been as fond of mistletoe as they were of oaks. To return to present-giving at anniversaries. I am more than willing to admit, as I have already said, that quite young children get considerable pleasure out of this custom, but even in their case it has distinct drawbacks. 142 MORE POT-POURRI When children receive too many presents at the same time, it is apt to encourage criticism and ingratitude ; and having to thank for what they do not want or abready possess is too early a training in what might seem to a child hypocrisy. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth is excellent and reasonable to those who understand it, but neither in word nor idea does it convey anything to a child's mind. I heard two delicious child anecdotes last winter. One was of a village schoolboy helping to decor- ate a Christmas-tree for himself and his schoolfellows. He made a touching appeal to the kind but tired lady who was doing the same : ' Please, teacher, if you have anything to do vrith it, will you see that I get something that is not a pocket-handkerchief? I've got seven already ! ' Sad to say, his eighth pocket-handkerchief had been assigned to him, and he had to put up with it. The other story was of a rich little lady who was taken to a neighbour's Christmas-tree. On receiving a new doll she said to her mother : ' Eeally, I don't know, mother, what I shall do vrith this doll. I have so many already, how can 1 find room for her ? ' It goes against my sense of the fitness of things to put either charity or affection into a treadmill and force people to give presents at a particular fixed time. Do we not all know the phraseology so often heard in the shops: 'WiU this do? Does it look enough? It won't be much use, but that doesn't matter. Oh ! here's a new book that will do for So-and-so.' I heard of a wretched lady with rather well-known tastes in one direction who last Christmas received seven copies of one book. Then there are the presents for dependents, which are chosen in imitation of the luxuries of the master and mistress. The sham jewel brooch or the shoddy Glad- stone bag which costs fifteen shilHngs and is supposed to ' look like thirty.' All this kind of thing seems to me DECEMBER 143 false, and many people I know are ready enough to acknowledge what a slavery it is and how undesirable. Some reconcile themselves to the foUy by saying : ' Well, it can't be helped, and it's good for trade.' Even if this kind of artificial demand is really good for trade, which many doubt, this has nothing to do with whether it has a good or a bad effect on ourselves, on our children, and on those who surround us. The giving of wedding-presents, though it is continually referred to as a tax, is so essentially tiseful to the receivers when judiciously done that I not only say nothing against it, but think nothing against it. I remember, in the early 'Sixties, a cousin who was the victim of twenty-seven ormolu inkstands ; but the practicalness of the present day solves the difficulty of duplicates, as the young people without the smallest concealment sell or exchange what they do not care about. Though few people may agree with my abuse of whole- sale present-giving at anniversaries, I think no one will deny that it tends to destroy some of the most delightful outward expressions of feeling that can exist between civilised human beings. To take the trouble to find out what somebody really wants ; to be struck by something beautiful, and to know to whom to give it ; to supply a real want to those who cannot afford it for themselves ; to give anything, however trifling, as a remembrance — all these are the gentle sweeteners of life, and need none of those goading reminders which come with the return of anniversaries. And to come to the more selfish aspect of the question. Instead of the callousness and almost fatigue in consequence of receiving a great number of presents at once, is there not a delight that lasts through hie until we are quite old at suddenly receiving a sym- pathetic and unexpected gift ? A great many people use holly and evergreens at 144 MORE POT-POURRI Christmas-time to stick about the room in empty vases, round pictures, etc. But they hardly ever take the trouble to peel their stalks and put them in water, though — especially with holly — this makes all the difference as regards the retaining of its freshness ; and if arranged in a glass, not too thickly, it looks much more beautiful, and does not acquire a dusty, degraded appearance before New Year's Day. I cannot bear to see the poor evergreens shrivelling in the hot rooms. We used to have hardly any Holly berries in the garden here, but by judicious pruning in Eebruary we now get quantities of a very fine kind. One of my many correspondents wrote : ' If you are interested in the lighting of country houses, I can recom- mend the acetylene gas which our gardener makes for us. We have used it for over a year, and find it quite charming — a brUliant light, delightful to read by, cool, clean, and harmless to sUver, flowers, and clothes, and safe, so far as our experience goes. Oinrs is the " pure acetylene " made by Eaoul Picket's patent, and not the explosive kind.' December 22nd. — After all the fine mild weather I have been mentioning, it suddenly began to freeze, with hard, cold, moonhght nights. So to-day I thought of my little birds. I now find it prettier and less trouble, instead of hanging the string with cocoanut and suet from a window or a stiff cross-bar, to arrange it in the following way : I cut a big branch, lopping it more or less, and push it through the hole of a French iron garden-table that I happen to have which holds an umbrella in summer. On the other side of the house I stick a similar branch into the ground. On these I hang, Christmas-tree fashion, some pieces of suet and a tallow candle — the old ' dip ' — a cocoanut with a hole cut, not at the bottom as I recom- mended before, but in the side, large enough for the Tom-tits to sit on the edge and peck inside, and yet DECEMBER 145 roofed enougH to prevent the rain-water collecting in it. They seem to have remembered the feeding from last year, as they began at the piece of suet at once. On the table below I used to put a basin to hold crumbs and scraps from meals — rice, milk, anything almost, for the other birds who will not eat either the fat or the cocoanut. But I found this was such a great temptation to the cats and dogs of the establishment, who became most extra- ordinarily acrobatic in the methods by which they got on to the table, that I had to devise wiring the saucer of a flower-pot and so hanging it on to the most extended branch, out of reach of the cleverest of Miss Pussies. If once it freezes very hard, I put out bowls of tepid water. This the birds much appreciate. December 23rd. — I have been out for a walk long after dark — or, rather, long after sunset, for the moon was shining bright in the cold indigo sky. At all times of year walking by moonlight gives me exquisite delight. Is it because I have done it so rarely, or because of the great beauty and mystery of it aU ? I went along our high road, the road along which Nelson travelled to Portsmouth on his way to Trafalgar, never to return. This evening it shone white and dry in the moonlight, and the tall black telegraph-poles — double the height and strength of those they replaced a few years ago, and which I have always hated for their aggressive size by daylight — in the winter moonlight only seemed to me straight and strong, and as if proud to support that wonderful network of wires which now encompasses the entire globe, annihilating time and making the far and the near as one, ceaselessly carrying those messages of happiness and despair, life and death, which in the space of a moment, in the opening of an envelope, bring sorrow or joy to many a home. Some- thing of the mystery of it all the wires sang to me to-night, with iEolian sounds different from any I have 146 MORE POT-POURRI ever heard, on this one of the last evenings of a year that is nearly gone. By my lonely fireside this poem came to my recollection : The old friends, the old friends, We loved when we were young. With sunshine on their faces And music on their tongue I The bees are in the Almond flower. The birds renew their strain ; But the old friends once lost to us Can never come again. The old friends, the old friends. Their brow is lined with care ; They've furrows in the faded cheek And silver in the hair ; But to me they are the old friends still, In youth and bloom the same As when we drove the flying ball Or shouted in the game. The old men, the old men. How alow they creep along I How naughtily we scoffed at them In days when we were young ! Their prosing and their dosing. Their prate of times gone by. Their shiver like an aspen-leaf If but a breath went by. But we, we are the old men now ; Our blood is faint and chiU ; We cannot leap the mighty brook Or climb the break-neck hill. We maunder down the shortest cuts. We rest on stick or stile, And the young men, half ashamed to laugh Yet pass us with a smile. But the young men, the young men. Their strength is fair to see ; The straight back and the springy stride, The eye as falcon free ; DECEMBER 147 They shout above the frolic wind As up the hill they go ; But though so high above us now, They soon shall be as low. Oh ! weary, weary, drag the years, As life draws near the end ; And sadly, sadly, fall the tears For loss of love and friend. But we'll not doubt there's good about In all of human kind ; So here's a health before we go To those wo leave behind I December 24:th. — It is so curious after a full life to be alone on Christmas Eve. But of course it was my own choice, and not necessary. I could have gone away, but I love these winter afternoons and the long evenings at home. It is also, I think, essential wisdom that the old should learn to live alone without depression, and above all without that far more deadly thing — ennui. I have no doubt that training for old age, to avoid being a bore and a burden to others, is as desirable as any other form of education. The changes brought about by circumstances mean, in a sort of way, a new birth, and one has to discover for oneself the best methods of re- adjusting the details of one's life. I find this poem written in one of my notebooks many years ago by a man whom I had known from childhood. Though he was not the author, the poem represented his feelings rather than mine. It has truth in it, but it also has a touch of bitterness, which appealed no doubt to a man who had reaped nothing but life's failure. He had always lived up in balloons of his own imaginings, believing in ultimate wealth, and having the power to draw forth money from others, merely to lose it. He died in old age and poverty in a garret at Venice. Do we reap as we sow? Very often; not always. I am 1,2 i48 MORE POT-POURRI sure that up to now I have never got back in mushrooms ■what I have spent in spawn. Of course the fault is mine, I know that. Laugh, and the world laughs with you ; Weep, and you weep alone. For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth — It has sorrows enough of its own. Sing, and the hills will answer ; Sigh, it is lost in air, For the echoes bound to a joyous sound — They shrink from the voice oi care. Bejoice, and men will seek you ; Grieve, and they aU will go. For they want full measure of all your pleasure — They do not heed your woe. Be glad, and your friends are many ; Be sad, and you lose them all. For none will decline your nectared wine — Alone, you must drink life's gall. Feast, and your halls are crowded ; Fast, and the world goes by ; Succeed and give ; it will help you live — No man can help you die. There is room in the halls of pleasure For a long and lordly train. But one by one we must all pass on Through the narrow aisles of pain. I like ' Bethia Hardacre's ' song better, and to me the spirit is truer : Bring me the book whose pages teach The fortitude the Stoics preach. Bring me the tome within whose scope There lies the quickening of dead hope ; Bring me the comfort of a mind That good in every ill can find. And of a heart that is content With its desire's relinquishment. / DECEMBER 149 Ebceipts A kind friend sent me to-night half a pumpkin — a real French pumpkin. (See Vilmorin's ' Vegetable Garden,' Potiron jaune gros.) It was grown near here, and had kept perfectly. It was moist, and a beautiful apricot colour inside. I wonder always why the only pumpkin grown in England is the vegetable marrow. Sutton feebly recommends others in his book, but hardly makes enough of them as useful winter vegetables. Here is a true French receipt for Pumpkin Soup. Cut up the slices of pumpkin (say, about half a large one), and boil them in water. When well cooked, strain off the water and pass the pulp through a sieve. Boil half a pint of milk, add a piece of butter, very little salt, and a good tablespoonful of castor sugar. Pour this boiUng mUk on to the pumpkin pulp. Let it boil a few minutes. The soup must be thick, and small fried crusts should be sent up with it. This receipt is enough for two people. Dried vegetable marrow is not supposed to be so good, but I had some soup to-night prepared exactly in the same way from a large dried vegetable marrow, and it was excellent, though it had not quite so much flavour. All through the last month my salads have been nearly as good as in summer, from tarragon and chive tops being forced in the greenhouse. Parsley and chervil are still good out of doors. When once one has become used to the herbs in salad, it does seem so tasteless without them. Lentil Toast. — Four to six ounces of lentils, one ounce of butter, water, and slices of buttered toast. Look over and thoroughly rinse the lentils, and put them into a small saucepan with enough water to well cover them. Cook slowly till they are tender and the water all absorbed (ten to twenty minutes). Add butter, pepper, and salt ; spread thickly on the hot buttered toast, and serve with mint sauce. Suitable as a supper or breakfast dish. ISO MORE POT-POURRI Green and White Haricot Beans.— Soak in cold water for twelve or even twenty-four hours, then put them into boiling water with a httle salt and two minced shallots. Cook till tender, but not mashed. They will take from two to two and a half hours, and must be watched. A bunch of herbs and a bacon bone, or a little raw bacon, greatly improve the flavour, but can easily be omitted. Before dishing up, toss them in a little butter and serve very hot. Thin Enghsh melted butter with chopped parsley can be used as a change. It is worth while to know that with all hard vegetables — peas, beans, lentils, etc. — if they have not been soaked the day before, the way to boU them slowly is to add every now and then a tablespoonful of cold water. The same thing applies to dried fruit. To Roast a Fine Larg-e Volaille (Chicken or Capon or Young Turkey). — Take some very fat bacon or a good tablespoonful of good grease (clarified fat of beef or pork kidney, half and half). Dissolve it in a very deep copper stevvpan and let it get hot, but not very hot. Put the chicken into it, having previously well trussed it; chop up the liver and gizzard with some unsmoked raw bacon, and insert this in the bird. Put the lid on, and let it braise gently on top of the hot-plate by a slow fire. The chicken ought to produce enough moisture by itself to pre- vent it from roasting too fast. Should this be deficient add a very httle stock. After from thirty to forty minutes turn the fowl over, with the breast to the bottom of the pot, so that it gets a little coloured in its turn. The largest fowl takes an hour and a quarter. When done, remove it on to a dish. Add a little stock to the brown glaze that adheres to the stewpan, having previously removed the grease with a spoon. Pour it round the fowl or into a sauce- boat and serve with the fowl. An excellent way of making a next-day dish out of DECEMBER 151 roast turkey is one I saw many years ago in a French restaurant. Ailerons de Dinde aux Navets.— Take the wing- bones and a portion of the legs of a roast turkey, and divide them into reasonable-sized pieces. Take some cold stock which has been already well flavoured with vegetables, and add a little more onion cut fine. Stew by the side of the stove till the meat is tender, not broken away. Add a good large quantity of turnips cut into small dice and a very small amount of burnt sugar, pepper, and salt. Stew all together till the turnips are quite cooked (which depends a good deal on the quality of the turnips) and the stock reduced. Serve in a hash-dish. The whole can also be cooked in a small fireproof casserole, and served in that with a clean napkin round it. The excellence of this dish depends on the goodness of the stock and very slow cooking. Raw Liver of Chickens chopped up with a little bacon fat and fried, then put on to toast with pepper and salt, is a good breakfast dish or savoury. IS2 MORE POT-POURRI JANUARY 1899 Difficulties of growing Daphne mdica— Journey last year to Ireland — Cutting down and re-planting trees — Apples — Skimmed milk — Manure heaps — Winter Honeysuckle — Botanical Gardens in Dub- lin — Botticelli's drawings — Tissot's Bible — EippingiUe's patent stove — Blue flowers — ' Snowdrop-time ' — ' The Sun-children's Budget ' — Floral notes from ' The Scotsman ' — Eeoeipts. January 5th. — After a white frost in the morning we have had a day which, except for its shortness, we should be satisfied with and think beautiful in early spring. These mild, sunny winter days do great harm in prema- turely forcing growth, but I know few things which it would be more difficult to wish non-existent. They make up to me for so many of our winter trials — fog and cold and darkness. I would not change them for the ' Sunny South,' where sunshine is a right, while here it comes as a most gracious gift — all the more appreciated because it appears unexpectedly and lasts such a short time. I have a plant of Daphne indica, one of my favourite winter flowers, in my greenhouse now. It is in flower and smeUing dehciously, but does not look at all satisfac- tory, although it was only bought last year. It was put out of doors last summer, as it ought to be, but was allowed to get dry. It made no growth ; it is leggy, drawn up, and the leaves are yellow, which with hard-wooded plants generally means over- watering in winter. I have tried for years to grow these Daphnes, but they are difficult to strike, JANUARY 153 difficult to grow, and have a quite extraordinary love of dying without any very obvious reason. I must devote myself to finding out, if possible, what the reason is. I see that Mr. Smee, in his book ' My Garden,' says they did the same with him. I have just gathered three beautiful, full white buds ofif a Niphetos Eose in the conservatory next the drawing- room. It is blooming extra early this year. January Qth. — Fate caused me to go to Ireland about this time last year. I dreaded the long night journey and the arrival on the gray winter morning. But were the steamers far less splendid sea-boats than they are, and the waves every day as stormy as they sometimes are, I think it still would be well worth while for any garden- fancier to visit Ireland in January, if only to admire and enjoy the luxuriant green of the evergreens and the beauty of the winter-flowering shrubs. I had never seen Garrya ellvptica in full beauty before. It had catkins six or seven inches long, flowering from end to end, one little flower growing out of the other like a baby chain made with cowsUps. The Jasminum nudiflorwm was not a flowering branch here and there, as in England, but one sheet of brilliant yellow flowers. This beautiful plant is very easy to propagate by laying some of the branches along the ground and covering them with earth. In six or seven months they will have made good root, and can be taken up and planted where desired. One house I saw in the neighbourhood of Dublin was covered on its southern side with the Clematis cirrhosa or winter-flowering Clematis from Algiers. The house was an old one, much frequented by John Wesley and mentioned in Southey's Life. On one of the thick strong walls, inside, was the following inscription (translated, I believe, from the German) : The Angels from their throne on high Look down on us with pitying eye, 154 MORE POT-POURRI That where we are but passing guests We build such strong and solid nests, And where we hope to dwell for aye We scarce take heed a stone to lay. There is a strong, practical common-sense in the lines which would have appealed to Wesley's instincts. I saw at Howth a beautiful plant of the Desfontainaa spinosa, with its foliage so like the Holly and its hand- some flowers in the form of a tube, bright scarlet tipped with yeUow. This I had never seen flowering before, and one is not likely to come across it except under circum- stances as favourable as those which belong to the Irish climate or to the west coast of Lancashire and Scotland. It seems almost a platitude to say that it is worth while going to Ireland to see the great beauty of the Irish Yew, one of the forms of the Common Yew, Taxus fastigiata. In old days in Ireland, I am told, it was called the Florence Court Yew, from Florence Court, where it was raised from seed about 1780. Seeds of this variety produce for the most part only the Common Yew, though some vary in form and tint. AU the plants in cultivation are of the female sex, according to Loudon. Whatever may be the climatic disadvantages of Ire- land, such as sunlessness and damp, the air remains clear and pure, the soil is unexhausted, and it is free from many of the agricultural difficulties of other countries. In the south, at any rate, there are no manufactures, no smoke, no coal-mines, none of those things which injure the atmo- sphere in parts of England, and make the cultivation of vegetables and flowers difficult or even impossible. As in the troubles of individuals few things help more than sympathy with and an effort to understand the trials of others, so it is, I think, among nations. If Ireland could turn her attention to the trials England has gone through at various epochs of her history, of a kind which JANUARY 15s Ireland, through the very nature of circumstances, has escaped, there would be less of that one-sided judgment which incUnes to think that all the woes of Ireland are peculiarly her own, yet solely due to the rule of the English. Troubles and difficulties come to all nations alike, and certainly England herself is in no way exempt. Witness, for instance, the terrible misery produced by the introduc- tion of machinery, the cotton famines, and even the legisla- tion of recent days which stopped the importation of rags for fear of the cholera. Let those who care for a vivid picture of such times read an old, forgotten novel by Benjamin Disraeli, written in the early part of this reign and called ' Sybil.' During a short excursion into the country by rail I was shocked to see how the trees, already less plentiful than they ought to be, proclaimed that sure sign of neglect — they were almost invariably covered with Ivy. This beautiful semi-parasitical plant is very picturesque, and many people have a sentimental love for it from its greenness in winter ; but it destroys the trees, and though it may hasten the end of very old trees to cut the Ivy down suddenly, it should always be killed on young trees — by cutting it through the stem at the base and allowing it to perish and fall away. I am told that one of the curious effects of the last Land Act is that the pro- prietors of land imagine they have an unlimited right to cut down their trees, without considering the evil effects this will have on the future climate and wealth of their country. As it is, Ireland has been far too much deprived of her forests in the past, and I, with the tyranny of one who imagines that she understands everybody's affairs better than they do themselves, should make the cutting- down of trees penal. The wise old Dutch settlers at the Cape understood this subject well. They made a law ■which enforced that every man who cut down one tree iS6 MORE POT-POURRI should plant two in its stead. Everybody who has a little plot of land should never fail every autumn to plant some acorns, beech-nuts, chestnuts, etc. Many trees will also strike from cuttings in spring, notably all the WUlow tribe, which grow the moment they are stuck into the ground. If I were a young Irishman I should delight in thus renewing the woods and copses of my country. We know how the Irish love the soil, and the feeling is not badly expressed in this little poem, which I copied from an English newspaper: Often I wish that I might be, In this divinest weather, Among my father's fields — ah me 1 And he and I together. Below the mountains, fair and dim. My father's fields are spreading : I'd rather tread the sward with him Than dance at any wedding. Oh, green and fresh your EngKsh sod. With daisies sprinkled over, But greener far were the fields I trod That foamed with Irish clover. Oh, well your skylark cleaves the blue To bid the sun good-morrow I 'Tis not the bonny song I knew Above an Irish furrow. And often, often, I'm longing still. In this all-golden weather. For my father's face by an Irish hill. And he and I together. One of the most beautiful colour-effects I saw in Ireland was a small lake planted with great clumps of Dog-wood, with its crimson branches beside the bright yellow of the Golden "Willow, JANUARY 157 A great deal might be done by a study of the most suitable Apple-trees to grow in Ireland. There seemed to me no reason why they should not do as well there as in Herefordshire or Normandy, but I have been since told that the want of sun does interfere with their ripening. This, however, only means that extra study must be given as to which kinds should be planted. The chief require- ments of Apple-trees are slight pruning in the winter and tying round the stem in October a band of sticky paper, to prevent the female moth, who has no wings, from crawling up and laying her eggs in the branches, to come to Ufe the follovnng spring and devour leaves and blossoms. Apples are most excellent wholesonie food. An Apple is quite as nourishing as a Potato, and a roast Apple with brown sugar is a far more palatable dinner for a sick child. Apples very likely might be plentiful in seasons when Potatoes did badly, and in districts near to markets they would fetch a much more fancy price. The following I must have copied out of some old book or newspaper : 'Chemically, the Apple is composed of vegetable fibre, albumen, sugar, gum, chlorophyll, mahc acid, gallic acid, lime, and much water. Furthermore, the Apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other fruit or vegetable. This phosphorus, says the "Family Doctor," is admirably adapted for renewing the essential nervous matter, lethicin, of the brain and spinal cord. It is perhaps for the same reason, rudely understood, that old Scandinavian traditions represent the Apple as the food of the gods, who, when they felt themselves to be growing feeble and infirm, resorted to this fruit for renewing their powers of mind and body. Also the acids of the Apple are of great use for men of sedentary habits whose livers are sluggish in action, these acids serving to eliminate from the body noxious matters which, if retained, would make the brain heavy and dull, or bring iS8 MORE POT-POURRI about jaundice or skin eruptions and other allied troubles. Some such experience must have led to our custom of taking Apple sauce with roast pork, rich goose, and like dishes. The malic acid of ripe Apples, either raw or cooked, will neutralise any excess of chalky matter engendered by eating too much meat. It is also the fact that such fresh fruit as the Apple, the Pear, the Plum, when taken ripe and without sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach, rather than provoke it. Their vegetable salts and juices are converted into alkaline carbonates, which tend to counteract acidity. A ripe, raw Apple is one of the easiest vegetable substances for the stomach to deal with, the whole process of its digestion being completed in eighty-five minutes. Gerarde found that the " pulpe of roasted Apples mixed in a wine quart of faire water, and labored together until it comes to be as Apples and ale — which we call lambes-wool — never faileth in certain diseases of the raines, which myself hath often proved, and gained thereby both crownes and credit. The paring of an Apple cut somewhat thick, and the inside whereof is laid to hot, burning, or running eyes at night, when the party goes to bed, and is tied or bound to the same, doth help the trouble very speedily, and contrary to expecta- tion — an excellent secret.'' ' Many people must have asked themselves how, in the old days long ago, before the Potato came from America, even the sparse population of Ireland fed itself i I feel no doubt that the good monks who brought the art of illuminating and of making the lovely old carved crosses, also grew their vegetables, and did not find the climate unfavourable. Probably, however, no other vegetable will ever now take the place, as an article of food, of the much-loved Potato ; nor is this in any way to be desired. Curiously enough, the other day a great London physician remarked to me, quite independently of Ireland and its JANUARY 159 troubles, that in his estimation the ideal food for the human race was Potatoes and skimmed or separated milk, all the nourishing properties of millc being there, the cream containing nothing but the fat, which stout people are better without. It is quite curious how few even educated people know or believe this. Skimmed or separated milk is constantly thrown away as useless, or given to the pigs ; whereas it is very much better for adults than new milk, if they are eating other foods. Modem science has made it quite easy, by using pre- ventives in time, to keep down the Potato disease ; but in spite of all this certain losses of crops are sure to occur, and the all-important thing is to cultivate the vegetables which would probably succeed best in the mUd wet autumns so dangerous to the Potato crop. Where land and manure are forthcoming, seeds — which should be of the best — represent the principal outlay in the growing of vegetables. It is much more prudent to make many sowings in succession than to sow a great quantity at once. It is said that a Cabbage may grow anywhere and anyhow, that it will thrive on any soil, and that the seed may be sown every day in the year. All this is nearly true, and proves that we have a wonderful plant to deal with, and that it is one of man's best friends. Linnaeus, the great botanist, mentions that he found it the only vegetable growing on the borders of the Arctic Circle. The Cabbage has one persistent plague only, and that is club or anbury, for which there is no direct remedy or preventive known ; and the best indirect way of fighting the enemy is our old friend elbow- grease or hard work. The crop should constantly be moved ; never grown twice in the same place, either as a seed bed or planted out, without well digging or tilling the ground, putting it to other uses and well manuring it. All the Cabbage tribe are great consumers, hence i6o MORE POT-POURRI the need for abundant manuring. Wherever there are manure heaps near houses or stables, or in farmyards, it is very desirable to sink a tub in the ground on the lowest side of the heap, where the manure has a tendency to drain, cutting out a nick in the tub to guide in the liquid, which can be constantly emptied out with a can. This liquid makes very valuable nourishment for young vegetables, pot-plants, and in fact all garden produce — strength in youth being naturally a great help to the whole crop. Besides its usefulness, this prevents the tmtidy wasting of a manure heap. I am very ignorant of Irish affairs in general, but I listened with extreme interest to all that I could hear of the co-operative movement now being carried out by so many farmers in Ireland. I have since kept myself informed in the matter by taking in that excellent little weekly paper 'The Irish Homestead.' Mr. WiUiam Lawler in a long poem in the ' London Year-Book ' for 1898 begins a paragraph on Ireland, of which the first Hues at any rate do not inappropriately express my wishes and my hopes for the co-operation of Irish industries : Oh, Ireland, when your children shall abate Their love of captious things to study great ; When you shall let your aspirations lie Far less in Statecraft than in Industry ; Then shall your people prosper and advance. A charming shrub, and new to me, is Escallonia pterocladon, which I saw growing on the walls of a house in Ireland ; it was covered in this mid-vnnter time vsrith white flowers rather like a large Privet. I saw a pretty dinner-table decoration consisting of a quantity of Jasmimum nudiflorum picked and put in small glasses with leaves from greenhouse plants. Also an effective decoration was of Geranium flowers (Pelar- JANUARY i6i goniums, red or pink) arranged in saucers full of eqoss and — in between these — narrow, pointed glasses with branches of pink Begonias. A little winter-flowering Begonia, called Gloire de Lorraine, has lately come into fashion. What a term for a flower ! But it is true, and plants of this Begonia make a charming table decoration at a time of year when flowers are scarce. They look best growing in pots. Eoman hyacinths in glasses could be placed between, and pink shades used for the candles ; or, for a small table, one plant in the middle would be enough. The colour, the growth, the shape of the leaves, all make it charming. I do not yet know if it is difficult to grow, as I have only lately bought a plant. I did not see it in Ireland, but a shrub that should never be omitted from any garden, small or large, is Lonicera fragrantissima. It begins to flower in January, and continues through February and March. Like every flower or shrub I know, a little care — such as pruning and mulching — improves its flowering powers. I had it here in a neglected state in a shrubbery for years. I only knew its pretty green leaves, and never guessed what it was or its early-flowering qualities. But my gardening ignorance in those days was supreme. In spite of the time of year I had pleasant days in Dublin at the College Botanical Garden and also at Glasnevin, the ' Kew of Dublin.' The little Irises Stylosa alba and speciosa were flowering well. They must be starved ; for if their foliage is good, it means no flowers. Many kinds of Hellebores were coming into bloom, some of which I had never seen before. The warm damp winters are very favourable to January- flowering plants, and we can scarcely expect to copy them in Surrey. The rather rare and interesting Daphne blagayana was growing to a great size, and covered with flowers, at Glasnevin. Mr. Eobinson describes it as a. i62 MORE POT-POURRI ' beautiful, dwarf Alpine shrub of easy growth.' I have not found it at all easy; in fact, two out of the three plants I had have died, and the third looks rather ill. But I think I tried to grow it too much in the sun ; it also wants pegging down every year after flowering. In a country house in Ireland I saw last year for the first time the reproductions, sanctioned by the Berlin Government, of Botticelli's illustrations of Dante. I never knew before that such things existed, or that outline book-iUustration of that kind was so old. The original drawings had belonged to Lord Ashburnham's collection, and we in England allowed them to be bought at his sale by the German Government for 25,000Z. — an unfortunate result of the law which never allowed the authorities either of the Print Eoom in the British Museum or of the National GaUery to keep any money in hand. These drawings are curious rather than very beautiful, and many of them are unfinished. In the illustrations of Hell and Purgatoi-y, Botticelli glories in detail ; but the ' Paradiso ' is left almost entirely to the imagination. Dante and Beatrix surrounded by a circle, he himself appearing often blinded by the rays of light, the whole surrounded by more circles ; this is all he seems to have dared attempt. In this same house I was able to turn from these lineal illustrations of the fifteenth century, with their delicate though meagre draughtsmanship, to the latest and richest of modern illustrations, the finest colour- printing that France has been able to produce — the Tissot Bible. It was not otherwise than satisfactory to realise that, however much art may have in some respects deteriorated, these illustrations, artistically and mechanic- ally, surpassed those particular dravrings of the Middle Ages, though the comparison is an unfair one. It would be immensely interesting to know what will be thought of this Tissot Bible in a hundred years. JANUARY 163 January 6th. — I always order all the kitchen-garden seeds during January. My method is this — the gardener marks Sutton's list, and then brings it to me to alter or add to it any out-of-the-way vegetable. It is most important to go through the catalogues and order seeds early in this month. This enables you to get first choice, and you are then prepared for any kind of weather, and can sow early if desirable. Also it is easy to make up omissions later on while still not too late. For all the flower-seeds that are the result of careful cultivation^ — such as Sweet-peas, Mignonette, Asters, Salpiglossis, and so on — the great nurserymen cannot, of course, be sur- passed in excellence. But for small people who grow a variety of flowers they are very expensive, as they only sell large packets of seeds, have few things out of the common, and hardly any interesting perennials at all. I said before and continue to say that, for all uncommon seeds, there is one man without any rival so far as I know, and that is Mr. Thompson of Ipswich. His catalogue alone is most descriptive and instructive. It is the only catalogue I know arranged simply and alphabetically, with a column telling whether the plants are hardy or half-hardy, tender or per- ennial, greenhouse, stove, etc. It also is the only catalogue which gives the approximate height that the plant ought to reach when grown to perfection. But of course this varies immensely, as he says himself, with the character of the soil and situation in which they are cultivated, especially if grown in pots. With this list and a careful reference from the things named to the more detailed accounts in the 'English Flower Garden' or in John- son's 'Gardener's Dictionary,' the requirements of all the plants that are grown in English gardens can be arrived at. The books will tell you better than the cata- logue which are the things best worth growing from seed. But a certain amount of experience and natural m2 i64 MORE POT-POURRI intelligence can never be left out of this kind of study. Mr. Thompson is also exceedingly obliging about procuring the seeds of certain wild plants which may not be in his catalogue, but which are very deshable to grow in rather large gardens where there is room, such as Tussilago fragrans and Iris fatidissima. What amateurs find most difficult in arranging herbaceous borders — even more diffi- cult than colour itself — is to acquire sufficient knowledge of plants to judge of their strength and robustness, and above all of their relative height. Putting Mr. Eobinson aside, the only book I know that is fuU of instruction, particularly in this respect, is the one I named before with great appreciation, ' The Botanic Garden,' by B. Maund. Gardeners and amateurs who are really interested in the subject are beginning to discover that to grow many plants successfully, especially in light sandy or gravelly soils, you must grow them from seed in the same air and soil in which they are expected ultimately to succeed. For this you must have three or four small pieces of ground given up to the purpose — some dry, some wet, some sunny, some shady, and which wUl require nothing but weeding and thinning. Seed-sowing, like all other planting, requires a great deal of thought and considera- tion. Some grow up in a few days and, every seed having germinated, require much thinning, however much you may imagine you have sown thinly enough. Some seedlings wiU transplant perfectly, and not suffer at all in the move; others must be sown in place at all risks. One seed-bed is required that can be left entirely alone for (say) two years, except for just breaking with a hand- fork and weeding, as some seeds germinate very slowly. Where this is known to be the case, with large foreign seeds it is weU before sowing to soak them for twenty- four hours in warm water and a little oil — or even to puncture the hard skin, as with Cannas. For instance, JANUARY i6s I shall certainly soak the seeds of the little Zucche, a kind of Vegetable Marrow that I brought from Florence last year, as it is a plant that in England has to do much growth in a short time, and it is desirable to get it well grown on in good time to plant out at the end of May. The exact time of putting out must depend on the season, and must be decidedly after that late May frost which comes every year without fail, and which in some years does gardens so much harm, though we all know how this may be guarded against by a little protection. I think the multiplicity of nurserymen, small and great, and the gardeners' sympathy with the trade, have had much to do with the fact that the sowing of seeds, except in the case of annuals, has gone so out of fashion. No matter where I go, it is not one garden in a hundred that has these permanent small nurseries for seeds or even for cuttings, or a reserve garden as described before. And yet I am sure many of the best perennials cannot be grown at all in a light sandy soil unless they are grown from seed on the spot, and a great many more are only to be seen in real perfection if they are treated as annuals or biennials. The growing of seeds is a work which an amateur gardener can see to himself — or, indeed, herself — and I am sure gardening is the healthiest occupa- tion in the world, as it keeps one much out of doors. Instead of lolling indoors in comfortable chairs, one moves about, and with the mind fully occupied all the time. They sell at the Army and Navy Stores an admirable little lamp-stove (Eippingille's patent) for heating small greenhouses. This will keep the frost out of a small house, and is far easier to manage, for an amateur with a gardener who goes home at night, than the usual more expensive arrangement. There are also small forcing-boxes to put inside a i66 MORE POT-POURRI greenhouse or in a room for bringing on seeds in early- spring. Greenhoiise Cyclamens are always useful, and should be sown early in the year (February or March) in heat. They should be grown on steadily under glass all the summer, and kept well watered, then they will flower all through the next winter. Mr. Thompson sells Cyclamen seed of the sweet old-fashioned kind, which is rather diffi- cult to get from other nurserymen, who all go in for the giant sizes, and are now spoiling this lovely flower by doubling it. It is best to grow them every year from seed ; but if the old plants are sunk out of doors and kept moist through the summer they flower very well. I have a large old plant this winter in a hanging basket, and its appearance is very satisfactory. Some gardeners dry the bulbs on a greenhouse shelf ; that also answers. I would advise everyone to try and get the old Prince of Orange Pelargonium. There is nothing like it, but it is not easy to get, as gardeners do not understand that it requires to be treated hke an ordinary flowering Pelar- gonium, rather than like the hardier sweet-leaved kind. It wants weU cutting back at the end of the summer, and then growing on in rather more heat than the ordinary sweet-leaved Pelargoniums. This httle care and con- stantly striking young plants in the summer vfill prevent its dying out. Out of the fifteen to twenty kinds of sweet- leaved Geraniums which I possess, I consider it the most valuable and the best worth having. Cuttings of the best French Laurestinus, struck in May and grown on to a small standard, make excellent filling-up plants for a greenhouse now, and if judiciously pruned back after flowering, and stood out in half-shado all the summer, they are covered with large white flowers at this time of year. When they get too large for pots or tubs they can be planted out in shrubberies ; if a JANUARY 167 little protected by other shrubs, they flower as freely as the common one, and the flower, even out of doors, is larger and whiter. After marking Sutton's list I mark Thompson's, as some of the flower-seeds are best sown early in January. The difficulty about sowing seeds early is that they want care and protection for a long time after sowing and before they can be put out. We are able to sow the hardier annuals here by the middle of March, especially Poppies, Corn- flowers, Love-in-the-Mist, Gypsophila, etc. I am sure that, in this Ught soil, the second sowing in April never does so well for early-flowering annuals. Autumn things, on the contrary, are best not sown till May, or they come on too early. I never sow Salpiglossis or Nemesia out of doors and in place till the beginning of May. In favourable weather Sweet-peas may be sown, like Green Peas, in a trench out of doors very early in the year. One of my kind correspondents said she observed I was not so rich in blue flowers as was desirable, and named the following. I mean to get all those I do not already possess. Gommelina ccelestis, Anchusa italica, A. capensis, A. sempervirens, Pa/rochetus communis, Phacelia campanularia. Gommelina cmlestis does very well in a dry back-garden of a London house. Browallia data is a most useful annual, and there is a good pictm-e of it in Curtis's ' Botanical Magazine.' Gatananche carulea is an old border perennial, and I have it. Linaria reticulata is a pretty, small annual; so is L. aureo-purpurea and L. bipartita. Omphalodes lucilice I have tried to get, but failed, and mean to grow it from seed. ■January 8th. — I have read once or twice in the news- papers that butterflies have been seen from time to time this mild winter, and now this morning I have caught sight of one of these Press butterflies, a beautiful large yeUow one, floating over the field as if it were summer. 1 68 MORE POT-POURRI To-day we have been sowing, in shallow ridges in our most favoured border, two or three kinds of early Green Peas. How this kind of thing draws the seasons together ! I dare say we have much that is disagreeable before us ; stiU, when these Peas are ready, it will be leafy June and spring will be over. January 9th. — The Iberis that ornaments French cottage windows and that I called ' Oibraltarica ' in the first book is not that at all, but I. sempervirens. I have one in. the greenhouse that was cut back all the summer and potted up in October. It has been in flower three weeks now, and vnll go on for a long time. In the spring I shall cut it well back and plant it out in the reserve garden. It grows easily from cuttings, and Mr. Thompson, of Ipsvnch, keeps the seed. It is, of course, not a choice plant, but it is an attractive and useful one for those who have not much convenience for forcing on winter-flowering things in December and January. Like many of the commoner plants, I have never seen it grown as a window plant in England, though it would do well. January 12th. — The first little Aconites are out to-day ! This is early Going through January without cold is rather despairing. I find that even in this dry soil the Aconites do much better under evergreens and at the edges of shrubs than in the borders which are manured and mulched. The borders are too good for them, and they increase better if not disturbed. I mention this, as I was so stupidly long in finding it out myseK. The more the uneducated gardening mind cares about a plant, the more it turns to manure and mulching ; but in many cases it does more harm than good— notably with Aconites, Daffodils, Scillas, etc. What they all want is moistm-e and protection at the growing-time. Drying ever so much in the summer does them good rather than harm, and they never do well in a bed that is hosed or watered JANUARY 169 to suit other things. "With the Aconites, our first out- door friends, come a few Snowdrops. They have never been planted here in any quantity, and have a tendency to diminish rather than increase : perhaps mice are especially fond of them. I am more than ever determined to plant a large quantity next year; enough, if possible, for me and the mice too. This httle Snowdrop poem has such an echo of ' The Baby-seed Song ' — a great favourite in my other book — that I copy it out of a recent ' Pall Mall Gazette ' : SNOWDBOP-TIME ' It's ratlier dark in the earth to-day,' Said one little bulb to his brother ; ' But I thought that I felt a sunbeam ray — We must strive and grow till we find the way ! ' And they nestled close to each other. Then they struggled and toiled by day and by night TiU two little Snowdrops, in green and white. Rose out of the darkness and into the light. And softly kissed one another. In the greenhouse have now been put the first pots of the lovely double Prunus with its delicate whiteness of driven snow ; no plant forces better. I said this, or some- thing Uke it, before. Never mind, with some plants it is worth while to repeat myself. In the country I do not now care to grow Indiarubber plants or Aspidistras, except to give away. They only remind me of towns, and take a good deal of room. I have in the greenhouse several pots of a white Oxalis — I do not know its distinguishing name — with a long growth of its lovely fresh green leaves, which can be picked and mixed with delicate greenhouse flowers, as they last well in water. It has a white flower in spring, and the whole plant is very like an improved version of our Wood Sorrel, Oxalis acetosella. The more I look at my beautiful old ' Jacquin ' Oxalis book, the more I feel I70 MORE POT-POURRI how much interesting greenhouse cultivation is to be had out of growing several of the best Oxalises. Almost all are natives of the Cape of Good Hope, which means easy greenhouse cultivation, and winter or early spring flower- ing. I shall certainly try to increase my stock, though one very seldom sees any of them catalogued. Tradescantias, that I used to grow in pots for London, I find equally useful here. The common green one is all but hardy, and flourishes outside by the greenhouse waU. This, picked and put into a flat glass, grows without roots in the water in the most graceful manner for weeks to- gether. A few bits of flower stuck in — such as, for instance, the Sparmatia africana, which continues to flower better if constantly picked down to where the fresh buds are forming — and you have a lovely winter flower arrange- ment at once : grace of form in the growing leaves, con- trast in the starry white flowers, colour in the brilUant yellow shot vrith red stamens. ' Munstead ' flower-glasses, as designed by Miss Jekyll (very cheap, and all kinds of useful shapes), are stUl to be got at Green & Nephews, Queen Victoria Street, London, E.G. The variegated gold-coloured Tradescantia and T. discolor are useful and pretty, and should never be allowed to die out or get shabby. They grow so easily at every joint that they are to greenhouses what certain weeds are to gardens. Mr. Smee in his ' My Garden ' recommends Forenia asiatica as a good stove plant. I have not yet got it, but mean to do so. January 13th. — A tall greenhouse grass called Cyperus laxus I find easy to grow. It is very pretty picked in winter and stuck into a bottle behind some short pieces of bright-coloured flowers. It looks refined, and if against or near white paint or a white waU its shadows are pretty, thrown by the lamp through the JANUARY 171 long evenings. A greenhouse evergreen called Bhodo- dendron jasminiflorum is worth all trouble. It is in bloom now, sweet and graceful and not at all common. All these half-hardy hard-wooded plants I find rather difBcult to keep in health, but I am going to pay much more attention to their summer treatment. They want to go out for a month or two; but, to prevent their getting dry, they must be either sunk in cocoanut fibre, or surrounded by moss, or covered with straw. If sunk in the earth, worms are apt to get in. I think they are best xeplaced towards the middle of August into the cool house, where they can be watched. Sinking the small pot into a larger with some moss between is tlie best help of all. There is no fun in growing only the things everyone can grow, and nothing vexes me like seeing a plant which came quite healthy from a nurseryman, and in a year not only has not grown, but looks less well than when it first came. The Choisya ternata cut back in May is flowering splendidly. I wish I had room for eight pots of them instead of only two. There are several pots with E^- ;phyUum truiicatum in full flower. The flowers are very pretty when seen close, and look well gathered and put into small glasses ; but the colour is a little metallic and magentary. Most greenhouses have them, but few people manage to flower them well. Ficus repens is a little, graceful, easily cultivated greenhouse climber, which hangs prettily in baskets or creeps along stones in a greenhouse bordei;. Every year we grow various Eucalyptuses from seed — some for putting out, and some for retaining in pots — especially the very sweet Eucalyptus citriodora, which is in the greenhouse now and is a great help, as it looks flourishing ; while the sweet Verbenas will have their winter rest, as they are deciduous, whatever one does — at 172 MORE POT-POURRI least, so far as I have been able to manage up to now. But I am not sure that autumn cuttings, grown on in heat, might not remain growing at any rate for part of the winter. Life is always rather unbearable to my luxury- loving nature without Lemon-scented Verbena, and I miss it so in the finger-bowls at dinner, partly because those few leaves supply what one wants without much trouble. But a little bunch of Violets carefuUy arranged, and one Sweet Geraniumleaf, especially the Prince of Orange, make a combination that pleases everyone, and they are always at hand at this time of year. Jamuxry lith. — In the January number of a charming little periodical called ' The Sun-children's Budget," in- tended to teach young children botany easily and amus- ingly, there was an account and an illustration of a rare English wild flower, Pesonia corallina. The coloured print of it gives the idea that the red may not be of a very pretty hue ; but this would not matter, as the chief charm of the plant is the seed-pod. This sUghtly resembles in shape the seed-pod of that other charming wild flower the Iris fatidissima, also much less grown than it should be in semi-wild damp places, with its beautiful coral-red seed and strange-shaped, gaping capsule, so decorative in a vase in winter. The seed-covered branching growth of Montbretias mixes well with the twiggy flower-stems of the Statice (or Sea Lavender). S. latifolia is the best for winter decoration. To return to Pcsonia corallina. I have been able to get some plants from Mr. Thompson. He says it is a greedy feeder, that the seeds germinate slowly, and that the plant grown from seed is long in coming to its flowering-time. It flowers in May and June, and in the autumn the brown downy pods open along their inner side and display the seeds. It seems to be a most rare wild flower, growing on an island in the Severn. Sir "William Hooker says it is to be found at Blaize Castle, JANUARY 173 near Bristol. Gerarde mentions it, and says that he found it in a rabbit warren at Southfleet in Kent. But in my edition the editor, Thomas Johnson, is sceptical, and adds severely : ' I have been told that our author himself planted that Peionie there, and afterwards seemed to find it there by accident ; and I do believe it was so, because none before or since have ever seen or heard of its growing wild in any part of this kingdom.' The origin of the botanical word ' Pseonia ' is from one Paeon, the physician of the Olympian gods, who used the leaves for healing, notably in the case of Pluto when he was wounded by Hercules. January IQth. — Last January someone sent me a cutting out of ' The Scotsman ' ; it was called ' Floral Notes from the West Coast of Eoss-shire.' The writer begins by showing himself extremely proud, as is only natural, of flowering his Lilium giganteum, nine feet high and with nineteen perfect blooms on it. He also praises, what I recommend to everybody, the biennial Michauxia campamcloides. He says everyone used to exclaim on seeing it, ' Oh ! what a charming white Lily ! ' The only way, as I stated before, is to grow it from seed. Watsonia marginata, according to him, is a lovely plant which in Scotland can be classed as a hardy perennial. It a good deal resembles the Sparaxis puhherrima ; in fact, much more so than it resembles the other Watsonias, which, he says, are shy bloomers. He speaks of another little favourite of mine, Linaria repens alba, and describes it — as I have always done — by saying it reminds him strongly of a Lily of the Valley. It is very easy to grow, and weU worth having. It is seldom found in flower lists, and he says he got his from Amos Perry, of Winch- more Hill, Herts. He mentions a pure white Iris hcsmpferi in full bloom, and below it a mixed mass of those new Tigridias {Awea and Lilacina grandifiora) and. 174 MORE POT-POURRI brilliant blue Commelina. This mixture was hard to beat. Also the trimming round the base of the Michauxia, already described, consisted of a variety of Platycodons or Japanese balloon-plants, in different shades of blue, mixed with white Swainsonia. All these last-named, with the exception of the Swainsonia, came from Eoozen's. Then he says : ' I think I have told you all that I can remember as being particularly good in 1896.' I thought he gave such a creditable list that it might interest others who did not see 'The Scotsman' — good com- binations being so difficult to get in herbaceous and bulb gardens. He goes on to say : ' The most strik- ing flowers grown here in 1897 were a collection of Calochorti. I had tried them previously on a very small scale, with very small success ; but, knowing them to be quite a speciality of the Messrs. Wallace of Colchester, I corresponded with them, and they sent me a collection of Calochortus bulbs which they thought would suit, and suit they certainly did, for they gave us the very greatest pleasure and were the envy and admiration of everyone else who saw them.' He put his Calochorti into a border with all the best mixed make-up soils he could find. Planting them in November, they flowered the following June. The only trouble from which they suffered in their infancy was slugs. But slices of Potato and Tm'nip acted as counter-attractions, and the plague was stayed. He says : ' There were about seven varieties of the Calochorti, and I don't think that in their own Calif ornian forests they could have done much better. Anything more perfectly fascinating than a vaseful of Calo- chorti it would be impossible to grow in a British garden ; and they last such a long time in water.' He names, with- out describing J|them, two other favourites, the first of which I have, Dracocephalum argumense and Vancmiveria hexandra, ' both gems in their way.' He goes on ' For JANUARY 175 those who are fond of rare Tulips I must not forget to recommend Tulvpa kaufmanniana, which I bloomed for the first time last spring, and which is quite equal in its way to Tulipa greigi and several other Tulip species which I have had from time to time from my afore-mentioned Dutch friends. After the Calochorti, perhaps a bed of Ixias from the same Haarlem firm was the next best thing my garden produced in 1897. I find Ixias the very easiest plants to grow, and this year they were all but as good as I have ever seen them in Italian gardens. So marvellously brilUant were they as to be quite dazzling to the eyes on a sunny day. They have only one fault, viz. that after flowering in June and ripening off they begin their next year's growth in October, and so their young leaves are rather apt to get punished by the black frosts of spring. The fact is, they suffer from insomnia, and so by rights they should be Hfted in July and made to sleep, in spite of themselves, on a dark shelf till planted again in March; but they do wonderfully well here even if left to take care of themselves.' It is quite a relief to hear this wonderfully successful amateur has difficulties with Lilies. All the same the description he gives of his own seems to me very like success. He speaks of the White Martagon (a Lily I am now trying to grow) and Lilium testacev/m as being great favourites with him. He was struck at Torridon by another plant which he says does so much better there than with him, viz. the scarlet and green Alstroemeria psittacina. The clumps were almost as strong as sheaves of oats. ' I have a new variety,' he writes, ' of this parrot flower — a deep crimson one — which was very good here at the end of November.' But if I go on I shall end by quoting the whole of this most interesting gardening letter. I hope the anonymous writer, who dates from Inverewe Poolewe, where the climate must be such as to make any gardener 176 MORE POT-POURRI jealous, will forgive this long quotation extracted by a sincere admirer, though unknown fellow-gardener. Since writing the above I have been sent another letter from a January ' Scotsman ' of this year (1899) The opening sentence is so original and suggestive for anyone who has a garden capable of being easily extended that I quote it as it stands : ' My garden having become quite filled up, I have for the last few years taken to enclosing bits of rough ground inside the policies (or the domain, as they would call it in Ireland), and have gone somewhat enthusiastically into shrubs. I have now three of these small enclosures, and each one seems more or less to suit some particular class of plant. My " Fantasy ' is hard and gravelly, and suits the Genista and Citisus tribes very well. My " Eiviera " is very sunny and with good soil, and in it I grow my rarest exotics ; and " America," my latest creation, being more peaty, damp, and shady, like a wee bit of the back-woods, has been given over to the so-called American plants — Ehododendrons, Azaleas, Andromedas, Kalmias, Heaths, and, besides these. Magnolias, Bamboos, and very many other things; so many, indeed, that besides the sixty Azaleas which fill a bed in the centre, there are a hundred and seventy kinds of rare plants in it, gathered from most of the Temperate portions of our globe ; and, with one or two exceptions, I must say they appear very promis- ing, considering my little " America " was only colonised in April last.' He then details his triumphs : ' My greatest this summer was my flowering abundantly the rare and beautiful Chilian shrub the Crinodendron hookeri. I got it from Mr. Smith at Newry, and planted it in my " Eiviera " in the spring of 1897 ; it stood last winter well, and early in June it blossomed freely. We have but few shrubs with crimson flowers, the blooms of so many of them being either white or yellow. But the JANUARY 177 Crinodendron is a grand exception. Its nearest neigh- bours on each side of it consist of plants of the Abutilon vitifolium and Carpentaria californica, both of which stood the winter ; and the former, from having come on so well, will be bound to flower next season. It has a great name now, especially in Ireland, for hardiness and for its beautiful blossoms. I possess in my " Eiviera " a number of things, of which I know little or nothing, with queer names, such as Coprosmas, CoUestemons, Aristotelias, Pittosporums, Eaphiolepis, Agalmas, Styrax, Indigoferas, etc. ; and, in spite of their names, I must say they look happy.' As from the other letter, I only extract what seems to me most interesting. ' I must now tell the contents of my Azalea bed, already referred to, all of which I got from M. Louis van Houtte of Ghent. There are sixty plants in sixty different varieties or species. There are single and double hardy Ghent Azaleas, and single Azalea mollis, and double hybrids of Mollis. They occupy the bed, with the exception of a clump of Phyllostachis viridi glaucescens and Phyllostachis mitis (Bamboos) in the centre, and I can truly say there was not a bad plant or a bad variety among the lot, and every one of them was full on arriving. If anyone wants a brilliant edging to a Ehododendron bed, let me commend to them Azaleas, Fritz Quihou and Gloria Mundi ; the former is of an extraordinarily dazzling crimson. Many people are of the opinion that the flowering season of Azaleas is short and soon over, but this would not happen if they got a good selection from M. van Houtte. I see from my diary that the first Azaleas expanded with me on May 18th, and they did not finish till July 24th, so that they lasted more than nine weeks. About the last to open were the pink and the crimson doubles. Bijou de Gendhruggen and Louis Aimi van Houtte, and the lovely species Sinensis N 178 MORE POT-POURRI fiore alba only began to expand on July 16th. For those who like species, Azaleas Occidental/is and Arhorescens are both very interesting ' I have a great love of Heaths, but have not got many of them. After considerable trouble I got some good plants of Erica a/rborea from Newry, which we had so much admired on the hillsides of Corsica. They seem to do very well here, and two of them bloomed this summer ; but whether they will grow into trees in my " Eiviera," as they do on the shores of the Mediterranean, I cannot yet teU. Erica australis, Erica mediterranea, and the Cornish Heath {E. vagans) are, like the Hydran- geas, deUghtful in late autumn, and so is the white Irish Dabcecia polifoUa, of which we can hardly have too much ' I have, I think, merely alluded to the Genistas, and most people know, besides the common yellow, the White Portugal and the Yellow Spanish so-called Broom, which is, however, not really a Genista, but a Spartium, though it looks so like a Broom, and is very showy late in the season, when the Common Broom is over. The low- growing real Genista hispanica is a very useful little plant. Those who have not got the Broom with the crimson lip (G. andreaiia), nor the cream-coloured hybrid ((?. prcBcox), ■should not fail to get them both, as they are an immense acquisition to our hardy flowering shrubs. ' To-day I have been reminded of a nice plant of Eugenia iigni, a kind of Myrtle which has stood out some years against the terrace wall of my garden, and which bloomed and ripened its fruit so well that I have lately sent a sample of its fragrant berries to a friend in Switzerland. The scent and flavour remind one of both Strawberries and Pineapple with a slight mixture of Bog Myrtle.' I hope no one will confound this description of a Scotch garden with what I am able to do in di-y Surrey. JANUARY 179 January 2Qth. — It is a constant disappointment to me that I cannot get the Tussilago fragrans called Winter Heliotrope, with its delicious fragrant spikes of flowers, to bloom here. It is quite hardy, and a weed supposed to grow anywhere, but I never get anything except a few leaves. This of course is in consequence of the dryness, the poorness of the soil, and the want of shade, as it has such a weedy growth I cannot put it into any good border. It is a distinct loss, not getting these flowers in mid-winter. I should recommend everyone who has a damp comer to try and grow them. They are not showy, but when picked their delicious scent will pervade a whole room. Eue, which is sometimes grown in kitchen gardens, though I think seldom used now in cookery, is hardly ever grown in shrubberies, where it makes in winter a charming feature. I find few people know that the French name for the plant is exactly the same as in English. Some people think the strong odour disagreeable, but I myself think it delicious. It is very useful to pick for winter bouquets, and the beautiful gray-blue of its foliage contrasts well vdth ordinary evergreens. If picked hard, that is as good as cutting it back, and only promotes its growth. It is very easy to grow — either from cuttings, divisions of the tufts, or seeds. Dryness, though making it look rather poor in summer, does it no harm for the next winter. Another plant that does admirably here in the light soil is Santolina (Lavender Cotton), and should always be grown for its pretty hoary foliage. It mixes well with some flowers, and is one of those plants that surprises one by its absence from any garden. The lower part of the stage in my larger greenhouse — I do not mean my little show one near the drawing-room — has been a veritable widow's cruse for me this winter. We have, constantly had Mushrooms from our bed covered m2 i8o MORE POT-POURRI with its sheet of corrugated iron that I mentioned before. Lately we have had lots of Sutton's winter salad, Tarragon, Chives, etc., Cress — I do not like Mustard — Ehubarb, and Sea-kale. The Watercress in boxes, de- scribed before, has done admirably in the frame. My gardener is getting extremely clever at forcing things in this way through the winter. Early in this month, lunching with a neighbour, we had an excellent dish — the best I have ever seen — of forced green Asparagus. I think next year I must try and grow this too. In my opinion. Leeks are far too little used in general by English people. Most BngHsh cooks only use them as a flavouring for soup or boiled beef. They are reaUy excellent stewed, and very good raw, cut up with Beetroot, especially if not the large coarse kind recommended in most of the EngUsh catalogues. The Long Winter Leek {Poireau long d'Hiver de Paris) is quite distinct from all other kinds. It is very delicate, quite small, withstands the winter well, and is the only kind that produces those fine, very long, slender Leeks which are seen in bundles early in the year in the Central Market at Paris. In France, gardeners help Nature a little by earthing up the plants while they are growing. It can be chopped up fine with other salad herbs when Chive tops are not to be got unless they are forced. The Wild Leek (the Allium ampeloprasum) still grows, I believe, in parts of Wales, and is, as to form and tint, beautiful and decorative. It is, of course, well known as the Welsh emblem. January 27th. — I have on my flower table a shrubby Begonia in a pot with small, pointed, spotty leaves and hanging white flowers. They are easily reared from seed, and I do think they grow so beautifully and can be pruned into such lovely shapes ! They are far more beautiful JANUARY i8i than those great, flat, floppy, opulent, tuberous-rooted ones that flower in the summer. The parent of my plant (mossy green leaves, spotted silvery-white) must have been called B. alba picia. The white Arums which were laid on their side all the summer in the pots and weU dried are handsomer plants, and throwing up more flowers, than I have ever had before when they were planted out in summer. In this dry frosty weather we thin and prune out the shrubberies. Every plant is given a fair chance or else cut down. Taking all suckers from the Lilacs improves them immensely. How seldom it is done ! January 28J/i. — There is nothing like a date and a detailed account of the weather for accentuating a garden fact. We have had lately several days of frost, and we had to-day for luncheon so excellent a green vege- table that both gardener and cook had immediately to be interrogated as to details. The gardener said it was grown from Sutton's hardy-sprouting Kale called ' Thousand-headed,' and I see in a note to the catalogue that ' the Borecoles thrive better in poor soil than most vegetables.' This naturally accounts for their being good-tasting here. In Vilmorin's list they are described as a cattle-feeding plant of large size, and bearing frost extremely weU. The cook informed me that she had cut the green of the leaf carefully off the stalk, and then cooked it exactly like Spinach. I give my cook the credit for cutting it off the stalk, as I had never suggested it. The result was most satisfactory. Ebceipts An excellent way to improve northern or frozen game, of which a great deal is now sold, is to lay the birds in a bath of milk for twenty-four hours, changing the milk 1 82 MORE POT-POURRI twice. They are then roasted in the ordinary way and are excellent. A good way of cooking potatoes in winter is to steam them without their skins. Then melt some very good fresh butter in a small iron saucepan, and to this add a good lot of onions shredded very fine, and fry till a good mahogany-brown, not black. Put the potatoes in a very hot fireproof dish, and pour the hot butter and onions over them just before serving. Parsnips. — Everybody grows parsnips so far as I can make out, and hardly anyone ever eats them, except now and then with boiled pork and with salt cod on Good Friday. They are very good in England, as our mild winters enable us to leave them in the ground, which makes them much better than if they had been stored in sand or ashes. Here is a receipt for anyone who does not dislike parsnips and does like curry : BoU some fine parsnips whole, without cutting them, wash and brush them, and put into just enough boiling water to cover them. Simmer till tender and till the water is nearly evaporated — about one hour and a haU. Tear the parsnips into fine shreds with two forks. Sprinkle with cloves and a little dusted sugar. Have prepared apart a curry sauce. (See p. 252, ' Pot-Pourri.') Pour this over the parsnips, warm up together and serve with boiled Patna rice in a dish apart. Mutton Cutlets a la Russe.— Braise the cutlets. The sauce is made as follows : One stick of horse- radish scraped, four shallots, one bay-leaf, a little thyme, a little raw ham chopped, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt, one dessertspoonful of sugar, a tablespoonful of vinegar, the same quantity of sherry, and one ounce of butter. Simmer it over a slow fire for twenty minutes, then add a little white sauce, the yolks of two eggs, and a little cream. Stir over the fire until it begins to simmer ; JANUARY 183 then pass it through a hair-sieve and spread on one side of the cutlets. Strew on a little Parmesan cheese, and brown the cutlets in the oven. Dish them up with a little good gravy. Open Apple Tart. — For this it is necessary to have a small round iron plate, flat with a very narrow rim, as used abroad. In the country you can have them made, and in London you can buy them at the good shops. They must not be made of tin. Line this with a puff-paste, and have a deep rim of paste all round. Prepare a compote of good rich apple, reduced till dry enough to mix in a small quantity of fresh butter. If at all lumpy the apple must first be passed through a sieve. Pour this on to the pastry, then peel and cut a quince into very thin, neat slices. Lay these on the apple in circles till you nearly reach the middle. Bake the ;pur&e in the oven till the pastry is cooked without burning. Serve very hot, or quite cold. i84 MORE POT-POURRI FEBBUABT Mistresses and servants —Difficulty of getting servants — Girls instead of boys — Eegistry Offices — The employments that do not take up characters — Early rising — Baron Humboldt — Coverings for larders — Blackbeetles — Children's nurses — Ignorance of young married ■women — Some natural history books — Forcing blossoming branches — Horticultural Show— Letter from San Moritz — Receipts. Last year in February I wrote a little article on mistresses and servants in the ' ComhiU Magazine.' It was called forth by the report of a case in the Divisional Court which seemed interesting at the time. The point at issue was whether a servant was entitled to give notice at any time within the first fortnight of her service, so as to enable her to leave at the end of the first month. The judgment did not settle the law of the case. My friends complained that I more or less put forth the difi&eulties of the present day with regard to mistresses and servants — especially the difficulty of the insufficient supply of servants — but that I suggested nothing new by way of a solution. As the question is one of very general interest, I think I will quote some part of the article, adding a few practical suggestions which have occurred to me since. Servants may, and often do, get into situations which turn out to be entirely different from what they have been led to expect. It may be even that they find themselves in a ' bad ' house ; or with a drunken mistress ; FEBRUARY 185 or, what is still more common with a young girl, under a drunken cook, whom the mistress still believes in ; or under a foreign man-cook whose manners are disagree- able to her, but who gets very angry at her insisting on leaving when he wants to keep her. He then abuses her to the mistress, who is angry and put out at her wishing to go, and refuses to give her a character or pass on the one she received with her. All these and many similar cases are very hard on servants, who as a rule cannot afford to bring the case before the County Court Judge, and who would probably have Uttle to adduce as proof, even if they could ask for help and protection. We all suffer from the well-known faults of servants, but we are apt often to forget how much there is to be said on the other side. With us it is a case more or less of expense and inconvenience ; with them it is their actual Uvehhood. I shall, I believe, be accused of seeing the question too much from the servants' point of view. But have we not all from our youth up heard of the selfishness, the ingratitude, the wastefulness, the idleness of servants? And each generation pronounces them to be worse than they ever were before. I can remember the time when servants were first expected to be clean, but baths were not provided ; and to use the bath-room, which was done on the sly, was thought as great an impertinence as if they had asked for dessert every day after dinner. Customs change, but the big fact always remains the same — that the relation between master and servant is, and must always be, one of self-interest. Within limits, each tries to get the best of the bargain. One pays to command; the other receives to obey. The most self- denying Christian principles are of no avail. Carried to a logical conclusion, these principles would lead to the Christian mistress doing the work and the idle maid going to bed ; or the humble Christian servant declaring i86 MORE POT-POURRI that her work was a pleasure, and that she could not possibly take her wages. No, we are — on both sides — just as selfish as we dare be. And this self-interested bargain between masters and servants can only be settled on each individual case. The merits on each side must, according to one of the oldest of symbols, be placed in the scales ; and the noble, majestic, upright figure of Justice must hold out her arm and adjust the balance. We never get beyond this, and it is the only escape from the greatest of tyrannies — the power, either by gold or by force, of one human being over another. This power it will ever be the business of civilisation to rule and to diminish. This in our day is the business, first of the master of a house ; or, when he has the chance, of the County Court Judge. The temptation to give false or partially false charac- ters is a very great one to young and kind-hearted people. As in so many other cases, the public themselves are responsible for this — so many people like being deceived, and look upon truth as naked and barbaric. If a mistress gives an honest character, not all praise, in nine cases out of ten the servant fails to get the place. This state of things is unreasonable and ridiculous ; and if those about to engage a servant would ask for the chief failing of the person they are going to admit into their families, they would be better able to judge if the servant were likely to suit them or not. I remember many years ago being asked if I knew of a young nurse who was to have every good quality under the sun. She was to be strong, she was to ask for no holidays, she was never to leave the children to associate with the other servants, her temper was to be perfect, and so on. I wrote back that such a combination of good qualities as was expected for twenty pounds a year I had never yet met vrith in any young mother. A corresponding story is of a lady who FEBRUARY 187 "wrote to a IVencli friend for a holiday tutor. He also was to be a lump of perfection. The Frenchwoman wrote back : ' Je ferai tout mon possible, mais si je trouve ton homme je I'^pouse.' A wit of fifty years ago used to say : ' I marry my wife for her money, I engage my footmen for their looks, as those are the only two things that can possibly be known beforehand.' As is common enough with a cynical remark, there is a good deal of truth in this. Now we come to what I consider to be one of the greatest changes that has occurred of late years, viz. the extreme facility for women getting employment with- out any character at all; that is to say, without any prying into the private conduct or personal characteristics of any individual. For example, aU shops and Stores, laundries and many other houses of business, engage their employes from their general appearance and the account they give of themselves. If they do not do their work, if they are insubordinate or unpunctual, they are dismissed on Saturday night— sometimes even without the usual week's notice and without any reason being assigned. This often appears a great hardship, but my point is that one of the chief objections to domestic service is that from the very start some sort of recommendation is required from someone who is supposed to be in a responsible position. I do not say this is not necessary, but I do think the custom might be considerably relaxed, with advantage to everybody. The usual characters given are often clever skating on very thin ice, and convey little real knowledge of the servant's faults or merits. Servants, like other people, have undoubtedly the defects of their virtues, and the wise way is to make up our minds what we are prepared to give up. If we go in for youth and good looks, we can scarcely hope for the qualities we may expect to find in age and ugliness. In i88 MORE POT-POURRI considering the merits of a situation, the more educated mind should not fail to look at it from the point of view of the servant. After leaving school, village as well as town, girls in a great number of cases are kept at home for a few years by their mothers. This gives them a love of freedom and amusement which singularly unfits them for the discipline of domestic service. It might be a possible bridging of the difficulty if it became usual for each family, according to its position, to keep fewer permanent servants and give, as a matter of course, more outside help, each of a speciahsed kind, to be got from girls who have lately left school and whose mothers would probably not at all object to their earning a little money and doing outside work — let us say, up to two o'clock. A girl who was a good needlewoman at school might be used once a week to repair linen or to do any other casual mending. I heard lately of a young housekeeper, tired of boys who did their work badly, having obtained excellent assistance from a schoolgirl of sixteen whom she trained to clean boots, knives, and lamps every morning. A beginning of this kind might, I think, greatly increase the much- needed supply, and above all create a means of direct communication between the poor and rich, which is still one of the great wants of the day in spite of all the charitable ladies. Some people would suggest that it might bring infection into the house ; but I really think that the risk is no greater than with everything else in London. There is always a proportion of risk — in the street, the ' Underground,' the omnibus, the Zoological Gardens, the bread, the meat, and above all the milk. A proof of the exceeding difficulty that many Have in getting employment is to be seen in the large numbers that exist of those terrible harpies called Eegistry Offices, the very maintenance of which depends on robbing the FEBRUARY 189 poor girls who seek employment just at the moment they can least afford it. I could quote story on story of how six, seven, or eight shillings are taken from a country girl without the smallest return to herself ; indeed, in some cases they simply retain any written references which she may have given into their charge at their request. I believe an effort is being made to meet this difficulty by an association called ' The Guild of Eegistries,' and it certainly appears to be sadly wanted. A new agency has been lately started on rather different lines in Derby Street, Mayfair, and conducted by three house-stewards who have lived many years at the head of large households. Their idea is that they are perhaps better judges of the kind of servants applying for situations than those with less experience can be. Also they mean to get introductions to clergymen and the heads of schools all over the country, so as to help girls from villages who wish to go into service. The experi- ment seems to me an interesting one. Things must still be very wrong when the proportion of people who keep servants is so very small, and that of the poor population so very large, and yet we continually meet with the complaint that servants, especially under- servants, are so difficult to find. As we get older, we most of us step into shoes we should have vowed in our youth we never would put on, and each one in his generation sees some progress in civilisation which has ruined servants, and feels that good servants are far more rare and difficult to find than they were twenty, thirty, or (say) fifty years ago. Good servants — by which I mean unselfish, devoted human beings^are never likely to be a great glut in the market. But then are extra good, judicious, sensible masters and mistresses so very common ? Of all the deadly-dull subjects of conversation among I90 MORE POT-POURRI women, the deadliest is the abuse of servants ; and few seem to realise that it is practically self-condemnation, as in the long run bad servants mean bad mistresses, or at any rate mistresses with unsympathetic natures and without the talent to rule firmly but not tyrannically. When we think of servants' homes and training, and how their youth has been passed, especially in large towns, and how they are suddenly brought to face unaccustomed luxury and high feeding, and to live an exciting life of society among themselves, the ceaseless wonder to me always is that servants are as good as they are, and keep as ' straight ' as they do, more especially as they are very often set a bad example by the people they serve. In large households where there are many — and consequently idle — menservants, keeping up a high standard of moraUty is hopeless, or at least very difficult. The constant absence from home so common to-day is one of the great causes of unsatisfactory establishments. Under-servants in moderate-sized houses are the ones that excite my pity. It is always ' the girl ' who is to do this and that, the half-up and half -down drudge who has two or three people who think they have an absolute right over her ; or ' the boy ' who is to have all work and no play. It is on the same principle, I suppose, as the 'fag' at school. 'I had to do it once, so now I will make someone else do the same.' Petty love of power and cruelty is so inherent in human nature ! As was re- counted some time ago in the ' Spectator,' ' I'll learn you to be a toad ! ' — the remark of a small urchin as, stone in hand, he eyed the offending reptile. One of the many causes of disappointment about servants is, that those people who treat them with kind- ness and consideration expect in return more gratitude than the circumstances admit. I remember a friend who had been good to a little FEBRUARY 191 Swiss nurserymaid, and reproached her for leaving her to go to another situation with slightly higher wages. The girl put out her hands, shrugged her little shoulders, and said : ' Mon Dieu ! madame, que voulez-vous ? J'ai quitt6 ma mSre pour oela ! ' How true it was ! And not only her mother, but her green Swiss valley, with the beautiful sunlit mountains all round — to live in London with its smoke and its darkness ! My friend was con- vinced, and said no more. Servants stick very closely to what they consider their own duty, but I have never found servants object to any- thing if told of it beforehand. They do not like unexpected duties sprung upon them, and this is merely a safe rule for their own protection. But the mistress of a house must reserve to herself the right to ask a servant to do any- thing, and if the refusal is at all impertinent there is nothing for it but to part. There is reason, too, for this irritating attitude of servants declaring they will not do work they have not been engaged to do. The common- sense of the matter protects them from each other, as one masterful, selfish servant would get all her work done for her by another (as boys get their lessons done at school), if public opinion amongst themselves were not strongly against such a shuffling of duties. Servants almost always behave admirably when their common humanity is affected. At times of sorrow or joy, births and deaths, or any sudden change and loss of fortune, they are shaken out of their attitude of habitual selfishness. But as time goes on they resent the position being different from what they undertook when engaged, and think it better to make a change. One of the things that seems a remnant of other days, and strikes servants themselves as being particularly tyrannical, is being expected to attend family prayers, whether they like it or not, and that, too, in the midst of 192 MORE POT-POURRI their morning work. But the attitude of mind and the ways and customs of servants are as incomprehensible to us as are those of the gipsies ; and to worry and hurry people who have not our views, whose laws are not ours, whose morality is not ours, whose customs are not ours, is a most useless tyranny, be it directed against gipsies or against servants. These manners and customs have grown up and are repeated by servants over and over again, in a way that they themselves often do not under- stand. One of their invariable rules, which is often commented on, is that servants — almost without excep- tion — ^refuse to eat game. It is generally supposed that this is because game does not cost their masters and mistresses actual money. This is so foolish a reason I cannot believe it to have been the origin of the objection. I feel it is far more hkely that in the days before rail- ways, when game travelled slowly, it was the fashion for everybody to eat high game ; but when it got past sending to table— unbought luxury though it was — the thrifty housekeeper suggested to the cook that the servants might have it. They had far better opportunity than the master upstairs of judging what state it was in, and I confess I am not surprised that as a body they declined to make their dinner off it. And so that mysterious thing — a custom — grew up for servants not to eat game. Servants, even the best and most devoted, will not ' tell of each other.' It is useless to expect it ; just as useless as a master expecting boys to tell tales at a public school. And on the whole this is a good rule even for ourselves. If a system of tale-bearing could be estab- lished, it would make life unbearable for aU of us. An eternal complaint against servants is about early rising. I believe a number of people have no doubt that fifty or sixty years ago (which is, I fancy, the time when rather young people think old-fashioned servants FEBRUARY 193 lived) they all got up early. We are certainly not the worst among the nations, but I do think that late rising amounts almost to a national fault. These things are greatly the result of climate ; but to insist on maids getting up in the dark, when there is very little to do, and to give the order that the kitchen fire is to be lit at 6.30, when the family do not breakfast till nine or half-past, seems to me almost tyrannical, though we have a perfect right to expect that the water should be hot and the breakfast ready at whatever time we choose to order it. !Por two months in the winter I always postpone the breakfast hour from eight to half -past, and I always use — for health reasons — cold water all the year round ; but I never have the slightest difficulty in getting breakfast punctually at eight, though I feel quite sure of one thing, that if I did not get up early no one else would. It seems a rehef to some people's consciences to insist on the early rising of others when they lie in bed late themselves. Servants are the first to remember that they can go to bed early when very often their masters and mistresses cannot. I think all of us shorten our living hours by taking more sleep than is at all necessary. As an example of the strength of some men, Mr. Max Miiller mentions that the great Baron Humboldt complained that as he got old he wanted more sleep — ' four hours at least. When I was young,' he continued, ' two hours of sleep was enough for me.' Mr. Max Miiller ventured to express his doubts, apologising for differing from him on any physiological fact. ' It is quite a mistake,' said Humboldt, ' though it is a very widely spread one, to thinlc that we want seven or eight hours' sleep. When I was your age I simply lay down on the sofa, turned down my lamp, and after two hours' sleep was as fresh as ever.' Of all servants that I have known in my life, the ones I have admired and respected most are the children's o 194 MORE POT-POURRI nurses. The love and devotion they give to children not their own is extraordinary. The highest life which George Eliot could imagine for ' Eomola,' after the dis- appointment and failure of her own life, was to attend and minister to the children of others. Nurses will often refuse to leave children, even when it is for their interest to do so, knowing all the same, quite well, the time will come when the children wiU leave them, as an animal leaves its mother when it no longer wants her. I asked a nurse of this type once, when she was getting old, why she had never married. ' Oh, m'um,' she said, ' can't you guess? I had passed my hfe in the nursery amongst ladies and gentlemen; my own class who wished to marry me were distasteful to me, and I was too proud for anything else.' This last half-sentence, with its faint allusion to having once loved someone above her, touched me supremely. Servants must so often pass through a temptation of the kind — pride in those they love being such a great stimulus to the affection and constancy of women. I think it is very desirable that children should early come downstairs for their meals, aiid the nurse go to hers with the other servants. She does not very often like this ; but it is for her good, and much more for her own happiness, that she should not lose touch with her class and isolate herself on a slightly raised position, which, from the very nature of the circumstances, can only lead to unhappiness. Nothing is of more importance than to help servants with their money affairs. They are very ignorant and very improvident, though often very generous. The extravagant servant will listen to no reason about putting by for the ' rainy day,' and the best among themselves con- stantly help to support some of their own relations. If they are willing and the mistress is tactful, talking over their affairs is often of great use, especially in giving them an FEBRUARY 195 idea what to do with their savings, if they have any ; as, like other classes, they constantly lose their money in unfor- tunate investments offering high interest, and sometimes are even attracted to do this by ' big ' names on the pro- spectus, often those of connections of their employers, which they look upon as a guarantee for security. Whenever depression comes upon me from associat- ing with those who are complaining about the ways and fashions of the time they live in and the ruin of their own generation, whether in the classes above or those below them, I fly to some of the books of the eighteenth century, and never fail to get the consolation I require. What has received the greatest abuse in my time is the Board School education and the destruction it has wrought amongst those who become domestic servants. I myself totally disbelieve this. First of all, those who go into the higher schools are very few in number, and nothing is so important in a free country as that all should have the power to rise, if their talents fit them for it. Here is a sentence of Oliver Goldsmith's, in one of his essays. In his time it was a higher class that met with his disapproval, but it reminds me of remarks that I am constantly hearing now about those who used to be called ' the uneducated ' : ' Amidst the frivolous pursuits and pernicious dissipa- tions of the present age a respect for the qualities of the understanding still prevails, to such a degree that almost every individual pretends to have a taste for the Belles- Lettres. The spruce 'prentice sets up for a critic, and the puny beau piques himself on being a connoisseur. Without assigning causes for this universal presumption, we shall proceed to observe that if it was attended with no other inconvenience than that of exposing the pretender to the ridicule of those few who can sift his pretensions, o2 196 MORE POT-POURRI it might be unnecessary to undeceive the public, or to endeavour at the reformation of innocent folly productive of no evil to the commonwealth.' Spending youth in school may prevent a young servant from knowing her duties as a servant so well as if she had been brought up at home ; but, on the other hand, being moderately well educated makes it far easier to learn, and I maintain that with a very little practical teaching the modem schoolgirl makes an excellent servant. But no one can have a well-ordered house on a small scale who is constantly leaving home or constantly changing servants. An indifferent servant who knows your ways is better than the good servant who is quite fresh to the work in your house. Leaving home often means a badly kept house, of that I am sure, unless many members of the family remain at home and give plenty of employment to everybody. Then perhaps the real mistress of the house may be very little missed. The fulness of life, the selfishness of Ufe, often prompt the modern housewife to throw up the sponge, to rush away to the idleness of the hotel or the lodging ; but it is a cowardly wish — a wish, except in real bad health, to be ashamed of. Our troubles and sorrows, be they real or imaginary, go v?ith us, and our only usefulness is at home. Here is a poem written by one of that brave trio, the Bronte sisters — Ellis BeU (Emily Bronte) — which, if not so subtle as Lionel Tennyson's ' Sympathy,' has a strong ring about it — that hand-shake in life's way which helps so many : SYMPATHY There should be no despair for you While nightly stars are burning, While evening pours its silent dew. And sunshine gilds the morning. FEBRUAR,Y 197 There should be no despair, though tears May flow down like a river. Are not the beat beloved of years Around your heart for ever ? They weep, you weep ; it must be so : Winds sigh as you are sighing. And winter sheds its grief in snow Where autumn leaves are lying. Yet these revive, and from their fate Your fate cannot be parted. Then journey on, if not elate, Still never broken-hearted ! I am told by young married women that so very much attention has been given to cooking of late that most girls of the leisured classes now know something about it, or at any rate turn to books or go to some school of cookery to learn ; but that they are quite ignorant about training servants in other work, especially inexperienced girls who have done more schooling than cleaning in their childhood, and who think anyone can be a housemaid. There is excellent instruction on many points in that book I named before, ' How to be Happy though Married.' It dwells, however, rather on management of husband and house than actually on teaching the servants their duties. A really well-housemaided room requires but very rarely that terrible turning-out — when everything is upside down for a day, and things are mislaid, and some things are never found again — ^which is the terror of all masters and mistresses. Two things are essential in a well-kept house, and unfortunately they war against each other ; one is continually having plenty of open windows, and the other is a prevention of any accumulation of dust. This can only be fought by continual wiping and dusting. When the mistress of a house is looking through cup- boards and larders, and insisting that they should be well 198 MORE POT-POURRI aired, tte servant's view is that then ' so much dust gets in.' And yet by a ' cussedness ' peculiar to themselves they constantly leave ice-safes open, which of course — to act properly — should be kept tightly closed, and never opened at aU except for the minute when things are taken out or put in. When the ice is melted they should always be carefully cleaned out. The following is, I consider, a good way of keeping things from dust in a larder without shutting the windows : Instead of the usual perforated tin covers, which get rusty and shabby and cannot be cleaned, I have neat covers of all sizes (made at home) of rather thick zinc wire, and then I cover these with clean butter-muslin, which can be renewed or washed clirectly it gets dirty. They should have a tvristed zinc wire handle at the top, to lift the cover on and off quite easily. The principle is the same as the outdoor covers for keeping off spring frost on young plants, recommended in my former book. The real fault of all the houses I go into to-day, my own included, though less so than some, is that they are far too full. Things are sure to accumulate. Avoid rubbish, frills and valances, draperies and bows, and all the terrible devices of the modern upholsterer. They all mean •dust and dirt in a very short time, especially in London, and a labour to keep clean — which in fact no one carries out, and which is only very temporarily rectified by the spring cleaning once a year. I have a Ibrench domestic book which I think fascinating and instructive, just because it is French, and much less shovTy and more primitive than English books of the same kind. It is in two volumes, is called 'Maison Eustique des Dames,' and is by Madame Millet Eobinet. It has had an immense sale in Prance, and all the httle details of household life seem more dignified and less tiresome when read in excellent French. FEBRUARY 199 I will translate one receipt for the destruction of flies that seems to me good, and I wish I had known of it when travelling abroad in hot weather and staying in small hotels : ' Half fill a tumbler with soapy water. Cut a slice of bread half an inch thick ; cover the under side with honey, sugar, jam— anything that attracts flies. Cut a small hole in the middle, larger at the top than the bottom ; fix the piece of bread in the top of the tumbler. The flies erawl in after the sweet jam, and are quietly suffocated.' The book abounds in useful hints of all kinds. In my youth tea-leaves were always used for sweeping carpets. Then came the idea that they stained and in- jured the colour of Ught carpets. This is to be rectified by rinsing the tea-leaves well in cold water and wringing them out before they are used. There is no magic in the tea — it is the damp substance of the leaves that gathers the dust. There is an excellent thing now sold, called ' Carpet Soap,' which really revives the colour of dirty rugs and carpets. To sweep without using something moist merely diffuses dirt. Covering a broom with a wet cloth is the best way of cleaning under beds, wardrobes, etc. — anything to prevent the dust flying. If every room is taken in turn and extra cleaned once a week, the necessity for the complete ' turning-out ' is obviated. Most people will say, ' Everyone knows that ' ; and yet it is astonishing how one has to remember to tell the same things, over and over again, to each fresh young servant that comes. And one often lives a long life without knowing most commonplace things oneself. I never knew till the other day that black-leading firebrick destroyed all its qualities for radiating heat and made it like iron. It ought never to be black-leaded at all. Tin jugs are excellent for hot water, but they must be cleaned inside with, sand-paper, or they rust and spoil It is almost despairing how even excellent and 200 MORE POT-POURRI experienced servants forget that no crockery can or mil stand boiling water being poured into it suddenly, espe- cially in cold weather; the quick expansion makes all glass and china fly. But the same thing goes on over and over again in every household, from expensive dishes or dairy-pans to servants' jugs and tumblers, and partly one is oneself to blame for not having explained the simple fact to each new girl who comes. In the chapter on Furnishing in my first book I re- commended that young people should go to sales instead of buying rubbish at wholesale furniture warehouses. Commenting on this, the excellent and amusing writer of ' Pages from a Private Diary ' reproves me and says : ' Why drive good taste into a mere fashion, and so quad- ruple the price of pretty things for those who can appre- ciate them ? ' This was not my intention, though I admit it may be a result of my advice. But I only wish some- one had given me the hint when I was young. However, if it does improve taste, and if it does raise the price of pretty things, surely one's sympathies in such matters are rather with those who have to sell the things they value than with those who can afford to buy them. My one object, both in this book and the last, is to give everyone — so far as I can — anything I know or have learnt in a long life. And in writing the first book, under the impression that it would be an absolute failure, I used to console myself by saying : ' Well, if it helps ten people just a little, that makes it worth while.' Old Sir Thomas Browne, in his quaint and self- opinionative way, puts pretty strongly what I feel : ' It is an honorable object to see the reasons of other men wear our Liveries, and their borrowed understandings do homage to the bounty of ours ; it is the cheapest way of beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the Sun, illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be FEBRUARY 201 reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness is the sordid- est piece of covetousness, and more contemptible than pecuniary Avarice.' February 2nd. — I have been reading lately two fasci- nating books on natural history by George D. Leslie the painter — one is called ' Letters to Marco ' and the other ' Eiverside Letters ' — descriptions of his own home on the river. The little illustrations have a great deal of artistic individuality, and are to me, though slight, very superior to the ordinary photographic reproductions. His descrip- tion of cultivating the difficult ' Iris Susiana ' is so good that I think I will copy it : ' As ill-luck would have it, I missed the first burst into bloom of an Iris Susiana to which I had been looking forward with great eagerness. This Iris is very difficult to manage in our fickle climate. It is six years since it bloomed with me, then it did so in the open garden ; but I have never succeeded in repeating this triumph in the open air, and this is the first success after many failures under glass. This Iris is in its native land (Levant) generally covered with snow during the short sharp winter, and makes its extremely rapid growth during the short spring which foUows; after blooming, it endures the long, baking drought of summer, which ripens the tuberous roots thoroughly. Of course in our country such an arrangement in the open ground can hardly be expected, and though when planted in the open the tubers thrive and grow amazingly they make in our damp autumns far too early a start, throwing up a number of strong green blades, which are almost always doomed to destruction by the last frosts of winter without showing the least sign of bloom. The books say that they require some protection such as a hand-light in the winter, but I have tried it over and over again without the slightest success. In my little greenhouse, however, I think I have 202 MORE POT-POURRI mastered the difficulties of its culture at last. My method is to defer planting untU very late in the autumn. I put the tubers into rather a small pot of nearly pure river sand. This pot I place inside another larger one, and plug the space between the pots with dry moss. I place the pots on a shelf in the sunniest part of the greenhouse, and give no water at all until some time after Christmas. Strange to say, the green shoots begin to show before the plants have received a drop of water. I give the water very liberally at first, but in great moderation as the plant shoots into growth. I let it have aU the sun that shines, and if the frosts are very severe at any time I take the pots into my studio whilst the extreme cold lasts. This year my treatment has been quite successful, and the plant burst into bloom on the dth of April.' This receipt wiU be extremely interesting to many gardeners, and especially those — and they are not few — who are striving to produce flowering Irises from January to August. I beUeve I mentioned before Mrs. Brightwen's ' Guide to the Study of Botany.' I should recommend every amateur gardener to get it. It is a clear, cheap, popular book, and any gro^vn-up person or child who wishes to understand the rudiments of the mysteries of botany could not do better than have this book as a companion. Through the year, books on natural history and gardening must be our constant companions to be any real good. We must verify for ourselves what the book teUs us. This greatly increases the interest of life in the country and no one is ever dull or bored who can learn about plants and insects. I know, alas ! that to those who really love to dwell in towns it is no use speaking of such things. The poetry of life is never to be seen by them out of the streets ; and children brought up in large towns rarely acquire a love of the country, I think. I remember FEBRUARY 203 •when we were children, a friend who came from London to see us used to tell us she could not say her prayers in the country — it was so dreadfully still ! Fancy missing to that extent the city's noise, the rattle of the cabs down the street, or the measured tread of feet along the pavement ! It is lucky perhaps that what we are used to is what we hke best. A collector of old books objected to my great praise of ' Les Eoses ' by Redouts. He says : ' I do not attach the same value to it that you do, and have never found it of much use, as nearly all the Eoses are hybrids and varieties many of which have passed away.' I was no doubt mistaken, but my impression was that the lovely illustrations represent in many instances the wild Eoses of the world, which have ceased to be cultivated, but which could easily be produced again from seed by those who took the trouble. This, I believe, Mr. Paul is doing. I think, as I said before, that in a soil where Eoses grow easily a collection as large as possible of these same wild Eoses would be exceedingly interesting. My correspond- ent goes on to describe a book — which I had never seen — that treats of all the wild Eoses of the world. He says : ' You should get a coloured copy of Lindley's " Mono- graph of Eoses," 1819. It is an excellent book, both as to plates and descriptions, and, though not common, is cheap. You can see them all at Kew. As you do not mention it, I fancy you cannot have the true York and Lancaster- Shakespeare's — a very different plant from the one with the splash petals. This difference is so well described in a page of Canon Ellacombe's endlessly interesting " Glou- cestershire Garden " that I give it to you : ' " A second favourite double or semi-double Eose is the York and Lancaster, of which there are two kinds ; one a very old Eose in which the petals are sometimes white and sometimes pink, and sometimes white and pink in the same 204 MORE POT-POURRI flower. This is without a doubt the ' roses damasked, red and white ' — the rose ' nor red nor white, had stolen of both ' — of Shakespeare, and it is the B. versicolor of the old botanical writers. In the other sort the petals are a rich crimson flaked with white ; it is a very handsome Eose, comparatively modern, and is the Bosa muiidi of the 'Botanical Magazine' 1794."' I have lately seen a double Bosa lucida, a great improvement on the single one ; also a double white Bosa rttgosa. Since writing the above I have succeeded in pro- curing through my Frankfort friend a coloured copy of ' Eosarum Monographia ' by John Lindley (London, ]820). On the title-page is this nice little motto : E guadagnar, se si potr^, quel dono, Che stato detto n' &, che Bose sono. The letterpress is far more interesting and instructive, but the actual artistic treatment of the plates is less beautiful and deUcate than Eedout6's. FebrtMry 9th. — Where people suffer much from the birds eating out buds, as I do, I strongly recommend pick- ing some of the branches of Prunus pissardi when in bud, and sticking them into Japanese wedges or into ordinary glass vases. This, in so far as house decoration is con- cerned, defeats the bullfinches, and the buds come out very well in the room. This is the same with all the early- flowering blossoms. The pink Almond and Pyrus japonica are far more lovely flowered in water in a warm room than left on the trees exposed to the cold nights and the nipping east wind. February 10th. — On this day last year I went to one of the Drill Hall Horticultural Shows, and was especially delighted with Amygdalus davidiaota ; it is one of the earliest of the flowering shrubs. I immediately bought a plant, and on my return this year I found it in full flower, FEBRUARY 205 every branch wreathed with the lovely delicate white flowers. I only wish I had bought three or four plants instead of one. I shall certainly do so next autumn. The branches I ventured to cut have lasted over ten days in the room in water, and those left on the plant have turned brown from the frosty nights. I went to a neighbour to-day and found the house filled with pots of Genista prmcox. They came from Waterer's, and a more charming effect in a large room I never saw. The plant was beautifully grown and one mass of pale lemon-coloured bloom — sweet-smelUng, too. I have long had it outside, and it does very well ; but it seems difi&cult to strike, though I think it could be managed just before it is in fuU bloom. I expect what I saw was grown from seed, but it is not in Thompson's list. February 20th. — I returned home to-day after staying some little time in London. Apart from other reasons, it is worth going away for the joy of returning. While in London I again went to the Drill Hall Show, on the 14th, some few days later than last year. Nothing struck me so much this year as the Amygdalus davidiana did the year before ; but it was an especially good show of flowers for so early in the season. Year by year the Cyclamens grow larger and finer in colour, but I do not think they are plants that have been greatly improved by increased cultivation and Brobdingnagian size. I prefer the pretty, little, old, sweet-smelling types. Pans full of miniature Daffodils were very attractive, and Messrs. Hill & Co. of Lower Edmonton had a lovely and most uncommon collec- tion of greenhouse Perns. Nephrodium memhranifoUum and &nAspidmm struck me particularly, from the charm of their growth. The fashionable, little, bright pink Begonia Gloire de Lorraine was in large quantities and most effective. The lovely Iris reticulata was also exhibited. The London streets were more than ever full of 2o6 MORE POT-POURRI beautiful flowers, none beating the showy branches of the Mimosa, Acacia dealbata, from the South of France. I found at home that the Crocuses had made much progress, and the Dafifodils, instead of only showing green spears, are all now in bud. The complete stillness is so delicious to me ! How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude 1 But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper, ' Solitude is sweet.' That is what the young feel. The old can do without companionship. My little conservatory looked bright and full of bloom. Last year I had a lot of Daffodils in pans, and they did very well and forced easily. This year I have Hyacinths ; but though they were not very good bulbs— some being successful, and some failures — still they look well and picturesque in the open pans : far prettier than in pots. I have one little Oriental slop-basin filled with the bright blue Scillas, which is very effective ; and the Freesias are always most satisfactory. Mr. Sydenham recommends buying them each year ; but I think, cheap as they are, that must be advice rather for the seller than for the buyer, as with us, treated as recommended before, they improve and increase, and, when there is so much to buy, that is what I call satisfactory. The common LachenaHas do the same. The Lachonalia aurca is more difficult to increase. LachenaUas do not require so much baking and drying as the Freesias do, and should be kept in half- shade in a frame after the leaves die down, and not quite dry. Early re-potting in July is desirable for both. To make variety in colour, and because they are such useful flowers for picking — their duration in water being almost endless— I have several pots of the Orchid Dendrohium mobile, and one fine spike^ of Odontoghssum FEBRUARY 207 alexcmdrcB in full bloom. My large, old-fashioned, sweet- smelling white Azalea, which has been so faithful a friend for many years, has failed this year — either from mere fatigue of being forced, or from being over-dried and pot-bound last summer, which I think more likely. I have a young plant of the same which is now in full flower — Azalea indica alba it is called in the catalogues. But often other varieties are sent out under the same name which have no scent at all, and are consequently much less worth growing in a small greenhouse. My old plant had the most delicious, delicate, and yet powerful perfume. We have now broken it up and re-potted small pieces, with the hope that they may grow again. The large pots of Imantophyllums are looking glorious. They are rather handsomer varieties, both in size and colour, than the usual ones. I got them two or three years ago from Veitch, who has specially improved these most useful and showy of winter-flowering plants. A small shrubby plant of the bright yellow Coronilla gives another spot of bright colour by the blue-green of the sweet-leaved Eucalyptus. We have brought the forcing of the Polygonatum multiflorum (Solomon's Seal) to most useful perfection ; and, put back in a reserve bed after flowering, it is ready to force again after a year or two. It is the easiest and most effective of the hardy plants to bring on in a greenhouse. February 22nd. — I brought back with me from Ireland last year several plants of the Iris stylosa. The white one has flowered, but not the blue ones, though these were put in two situations — some in good rich soil, and some in poor ground. These latter perhaps may flower later. One of the reasons why Irises should be so much cultivated is that they have the merit, which can never be too much appreciated, of flowering admirably in water if picked in bud. A flower can hardly claim a 2o8 MORE POT-POURRI greater merit for domestic purposes, and for the same reason they are well adapted for travelling. Febniary 23rd. — A treat has come for all of us amateur gardeners this month in the publication of a long looked-f or gardening book by Miss JekyU, charmingly illustrated from photographs of her own. But, good as are these reproductions, in my opinion they can never compare with woodcuts or steel engravings, and they give but a faint idea of the unusual charm and beauty of her self-created garden. Her book is most truly called 'Wood and Garden,' and is a never-ending lesson of how to lay out a piece of ground by using its natural advantages instead of hopelessly destroying them by clearing the ground to make a garden. In this case there can be no imitation, as, without the copse-covered piece of ground which she selected, no one could produce the same sort of garden. Nature must have had her way first. But the charm of the combination of Nature and Art as carried out by Miss JekyU is very great. We always open these books at the month we are in, and she says : ' There is always in February some one day at least when one smells the yet distant, coming summer.' Such a day has been ours to-day, and I enjoyed it doubly in consequence of having so lately returned from London. And the forwardness of the spring — it really is more forward even than last year — makes one enjoy it more. Though everything is growing so fast, it is quite agitating for the gardener, giving the feehng that all the work is behindhand. I am told that in my first book many thought I recommended that things should be done too soon ; but in my experience human nature rather tends to reversing the proverb, and acts on the principle of ' Never do to-day what can be done to-morrow.' And in all things about a garden, except when Jack Frost is to be feared, it is best to be early rather than late. FEBRUARY 209 My January-sown Green Peas are coming up very well, but they would not survive except for the pea-wire cover- ings, as the sparrows would nip out the hearts. The black cotton strung about the Prurms pissardi has answered. I have far more bloom than I have ever had before. As I rush about the garden, and see how the Daffies grow an inch each day in such weather, in spite of very cold nights, and though I have the usual endless ' Martharish ' bothers of life inside the house, I can indeed say with Thomson : I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot rob me of free nature's grace ; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face ; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living stream at eve. Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great chUdreu leave. Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave. To appreciate Miss Jekyll's book in a way to profit by it, one must read and re-read it. One more quotation I must make. In ' May ' she says : ' The blooming of the Cowshp is the signal for a search for the Morel, one of the best of the edible fungi. It grows in open woods, or where the undergrowth has not yet grown high, and frequently in old parks and pastures, near or under Elms. It is quite unlike any other fungus, shaped like a tall egg, with the pointed end upwards, on a short, hollow stalk, and looking something like a sponge. It has a delicate and excellent flavour, and is perfectly wholesome.' I have, alas ! spent nearly all my life, and I have never searched for the Morel ! Have you, dear reader ? Februa/ry 26th. — I have been to-day planting large quantities of the roots of the TropcBolum speciosum in various parts of the garden. These were given to me by a kind neighbour. He says the great secret (and he is p 2IO MORE POT-POURRI very successful himself) is digging the holes quite four feet deep, filling them in with leaf-mould and the light earth, and planting the roots a foot below the surface, and then they have two feet of loose soil to work down into. I hope they may be successful ; I do hate being beaten. At least some must succeed, one would think, planted in five different situations. They have to be labelled with large white labels, as the great danger, if one's back is turned, is of their being dug up. Driving last year on this day, I find I noticed the Nettles were well up in the hedges and just ready for picking, and the catkins were hanging from the Hazel boughs. A Uttle Celandine on a moist bank opened its yellow star in the sun. I have never seen it cultivated in gardens, which — weed though it is — seems a pity, and J, think I shall try it in patches under some shrubs. No doubt it is rather its early appearance than its shining beauty that has made it so loved of the poets. "Words- worth describes it and its surroundings with grace and truth in the following well-known poem : Fansies, Lilies, Eing-cups, Daisies, Let them live upon their praises ; There's a flower that shall be mine, 'Tis the little Celandine I Ere a leaf is on a bush. In the time before the thrush Has a thought about its nest, Thou wilt come with h.-ilf a call. Spreading out thy glossy breast. Like a careless prodigal ; Telling tales about the sun, When we've little warmth or none. Careless of thy neighbourhood. Thou dost show thy pleasant On the moor and in the wood. In the lane— there's not a place, Howsoever mean it be, But 'tis good enough for thee. FEBRUARY 211 I picked to-day and ate with great relish my first DandeHon salad. I can recommend it again and again to salad lovers ; but it must be very carefully washed, as any grit entirely spoils it. Later on the leaves get tough and bitter. Februwry 27th. — The last few days have been very cold, but I have some most beautiful branches of Almond in full flower in the house. They were picked, as I have explained, whilst in bud, and put to expand in the green- house. This method defies the frosts and wind, and greatly prolongs the time of enjoying the blossoms. About this time last year I cut away another bed of Laurels, which we had not time to do in the autumn, and it has made a nice snug corner for some newly-bought flowering shrubs— Lilacs which I had not got, such as Dr. Lindley and Charles X., and some white ones; a double-flowering Cherry, which is such a beautiful thing (though I fear it will never do well here, as it likes a strong damp soil); a Cerasus, pseudo Cerasus, double crimson Peach, Hamamelis ja;ponica (which has died), Eucryphia pinnatifolia, and the before-mentioned Amyg- dalus davidiana alba. I have a great many Spiraeas in the garden, but never tiU now the Spircea confusa, which forces very well, and is a lovely thing. I have put it for the present with these new shrubs. I find it a distinct ad- vantage putting new things in one place, as then one sees how they do, and what spreads and flourishes, and what is only a dry stick and a label the following year. It is mysterious why some plants die. I bought two beautiful Tea-roses in pots which were planted outside and drawn through into the greenhouse — one, a Mardchal Niel ; the other, Niphetos. Both flourished equally well through the summer. The next spring, without any apparent reason, the Mar6chal Niel, having made its leaves, turned brown and died — very provoking, as in this way one loses a p2 212 MORE POT-POURRI •whole year's growth. I think anyone who grows forced Tea-roses for picking will find they do far better and look more satisfactory in water if floated in large glass bowls than if only their stalks are in water. I received a letter to-day from the Engadine, describ- ing a phase of modern luxury which reads strangely to those who live quietly in country comers. My friend writes from San Moritz, and thus describes an episode in a fancy-dress ball : ' In the cotillon they had an enormous silver sledge smothered in the most gorgeously lovely flowers — Imantophyllums, Lilium speciosum, Lilies of the Valley with stalks eight inches long, White mac, and Prunus. And all these looked as if they had just been freshly gathered; yet the whole thing came from a flower-shop at Prankfurt-on-the-Main. I must say I never saw anything prettier, and in the sledge sat a lovely downy young English beauty, scattering bunches of flowers about, as they dragged her round the room. The whole thing seemed beautiful Fairyland up here in this world of ice and snow.' I suppose it is no more luxury for those who can afford it than my humble little greenhouse, which also costs money ; yet one cannot help feeUng sorry that these beautiful hot-house flowers should have been dragged up there for the wasteful enjoyment of one evening. Eeceipts Poulet a la Valencienne.— Cut a good fowl into pieces. Wipe it dry, but do not put it into water. Take a saucepan, put in a wineglassful of olive oil, and add two cloves of garlic. Be careful that it does not burn ; for if it does, it will turn bitter. Stir the garlic until it is fried. Put in the chicken. Keep stirring it about while it fries, then add a little salt, and continue to stir. Whenever a FEBRUARY 213 sound of cracking is heard, stir it again. When the chicken is well browned, which will take from five to ten minutes, stirring constantly, put in chopped onions, three or four chopped red or green chillies, and stir about. If once the contents catch the pan, the dish is spoilt. Then add tomatoes divided into quarters, and parsley. Take three teacupfuls of well-washed rice and mix up well together. Then add hot stock, enough to cover over the whole. Let it boil once, then set aside to simmer till the rice becomes tender and done. The great art consists in having the rice turned out granular and separate, and not in a pudding state, which is sure to be the case if a cover is put over the dish, so that the steam is condensed. It should be served up in the casserole in which it is cooked. Bits of fish, sausage, and chicken livers may be added ; also a little saffron. Chasse. — Ingredients : one onion, six tomatoes, three potatoes, a slice of ham, some grated cheese, red pepper, very little allspice. Fry the sliced onion lightly in some lard and butter mixed. Add the tomatoes and ham, both cut into small pieces. When they are well browned, add some water and then the potatoes, having first cut them in dice shapes. Let aU cook until the potatoes are done ; then, just before serving, mix in grated cheese well flavoured with red pepper until the sauce is ' ropy.' Have a very hot dish, pour the sauce on to it, and serve carefully poached eggs on the top. This makes a delightful breakfast dish. Water Souchet. — Take six flounders, fillet four, put the fillets into a saucepan. The carcasses and the others put into a stewpan with some stock, a bit of parsley and a little carrot, which boil for an hour. Strain, and shred some carrot, also parsley root and a few sprigs of parsley. Boil for ten minutes more. Put the fillets into the oven to cook. When the souchet is dished, 214 MORE POT-POURRI put in the fillets, and serve with brown bread and butter, and lemons. Everything of the kind is now to be bought, but I think the following few receipts may turn out useful. In washing paint so many do not know how injm-ious is soda, or yellow soap or soft soap. FOF Washing White Paint.— Shred common yellow household soap, and boil it down in a saucepan with sufficient whitening to make it into a thick paste. Put it in a jar, and use a little on a rag when required. It wUl clean the paint perfectly, and will not turn it yellow. Never use soda for paint; it spoils it and marks it at once. Furniture Polish. — To clean, polish, and take marks out of furniture, ' Sanitas Eurniture PoHsh ' is excellent and not expensive ; but the following is an old receipt and very good : Equal quantities of methylated spirit, vinegar, and linseed oil. The bottle should be weU shaken before using, or the spirit remains on the top and will burn the polished surface of whatever it touches. For Polishing New Brown Boots and Shoes.— I am sure many people will agree with me as to the extreme ugliness of new brown shoes ; yet we all must have them new sometimes. An excellent way of correcting this ugly newness is to rub the leather three times in succession with vaseline. After that, clean them in the ordinary way with brown cream, and they will take the polish as if they were months old. To Remove Fruit Stains.— Soak the stain in a glass of water in which you have put ten to twelve drops of sulphuric acid. Then wash with clear water. To Prevent Lamp-wicks from Smoking.— Steep the wicks in very strong vinegar; then let them dry completely before they are used. A series of penny books published as the ' Domestic FEBRUARY 215 Science Series ' is full of useful information. The only one I actually know, called ' Manual of Housewifery for Elementary Schools,' by Helena Head, to be bought at 4 Princes Eoad, Liverpool, seems to me thoroughly practical. One thing I must copy out of Mrs. Eoundell's most excellent ' Practical Cookery Book,' more especially as it is not a cooking receipt, but a cure for one of the most distinct worries that affect nearly every house in England, more especially if keeping down in the spring is neglected ■ — and yet how few servants do not neglect it till it has become a plague ! — I mean, blackbeetles. Mrs. Eoundell gives the following receipt, and we found it excellent in a new flat in London which swarmed with them : 'To Destroy Blackbeetles.— Not long ago the kitchens and bakeries of the Fir Vale Union Work- house at Sheffield swarmed with blackbeetles, to such an extent that the Government Inspector feared the buildings would have to be pulled down. The insects even got into the soup and bread provided for the in- mates, in spite of all vigilance and every remedy. The Board of Guardians, in despair, consulted the curator of the Sheffield Museum— Mr. Howarth, P.Z.S.— and he invented a paste which in a short time completely freed the workhouse from blackbeetles. This " Union " cock- roach paste can be had in tins from Mr. Hewitt, chemist, 66 Division Street, Sheffield. It never fails in its effect.' ' Keating's Powder ' is also effectual if the beetles are swept up in the morning and destroyed. 2i6 MORE POT-POURRI MABGH Confessions about diet — Cures for rheumatism — Effects of tea- drink- ing — Sparing animal life a bad reason for vegetarianism — The Berlin foot-race — Mrs. Crow in Edinburgh — Bagehot on luxury — A word about babies — German and English nurseries — Sir Eichard Thorne Thome on raw milk — The New Education- Difficulty of understanding young children — Gardening — Cooking. I FEEL at last the moment has come when I must make a confession. I am a non-meat-eater ! I know that this will probably entail the loss of the good opinion of my readers, and I should never have dreamt of bringing forward so personal a matter, had I not felt compelled to do so in consequence of the numbers of letters I have received in which the writers deplore their loss of health, their gout and rheumatism, and the general ailments that prevent their going into the garden, etc. This strikes me as unnatural and wrong. There is no reason at all, unless there be actual disease, that sickness should as a matter of course accompany old age any more than any other period of life. This chapter is not intended for the young or the healthy or the really sick, but for those chronic sufferers who are constantly appealing to the medical profession for ' something ' that will cure their aches and pains, their sleepless nights, their stiff joints, and their neuralgias, and who put all their faith in drugs which, even when they seem to do good, turn out to be palliatives, not cures — that is, in the case of constitu- MARCH 217 tions where the ailments are the result of gout and rheumatism. Some years ago all these symptoms in various degrees were mine, and I fully expected that they would increase with age; but I was wrong — by gradual steps they all disappeared. Nothing of course makes the old young; but bad health, the chief dread of old age, I no longer have. I can work out in the garden with even greater impunity than I could have done twenty years ago. I take long journeys — say, of twenty-seven hours — without fatigue, and I sleep excellently. This all reads like an advertisement for a patent medicine, but it is nothing of the kind ; in fact, for years I have taken no medicine at all. But if I am asked to account for this improvement, in one word it is — piet. I have become an ardent advocate of non-meat-eating, but without any of those sentimental feelings about the killing of animals which many people have who yet continue to partake of ordinary food ; nor did it begin from the belief that meat is a frequent con- veyor of poisons. I left it off at first simply as an experi- ment. I believe that meat, especially if eaten daily — the small quantities ferment the other foods — is on the whole deleterious to the health of the human race, and simply poisonous to the gouty, the rheumatic, or the neuralgic. All through my lifetime there seems to have been the strongest belief everywhere in Europe, amongst all classes (especially those who are habitually over-fed), that if they feel weak or ansemic, or what is called ' below par,' therefore they must try and eat more, and cram them- selves with stimulating food, such as meat-Juices, beef- tea, or even raw beef, and — as with drugs or alcohol — for a time it often answers. The origin of this belief, no doubt, has come from the teaching of the medical profes- sion, only disputed now and then by a solitary member. 2i8 MORE POT-POURRI Surely this system is nearly on the level, and only one degree less harmful, than yielding to the request of the poor drunkard, who wildly cries for more of the very poison that is killing him. The immediate relief is actual and visible ; the after-reaction in both cases being the cause of fresh suffering. My object as a propagandist in the cause of non-meat- eating is merely to give others my experience, with the ordinary human desire that they may try a cure which has been so beneficial to myself. When some years ago chronic rheumatism was gaining upon me, I resorted to the usual solaces of the well-to-do. I consulted doctors, I took drugs, I left off wine — which before the age of forty I had rarely taken, and after forty only in small quantities. I went to Aix-les-Bains. I got momentary reUef from all these cures, but on the whole the malady gained upon me, and I looked forward to a cripply old age with great dread, knowing full well that it would prevent my enjoying my favourite occupation of gardening. My family physician summed up the case with : ' Well, Mrs. Earle, at your age this rheumatism which has settled in the hips is extremely difficult of cure.' I repeated this to a veget- arian friend, who lent me a book called ' The Science of Healing,' by L. Kuehne, a German non-medical man who practises a strict vegetarian water-cure at Leipzig. In consequence of reading this book I undertook to try and cure myself. The results have been simply wonderful, and I find the kind of food I eat, now that I am used to it, entails no self-denial at all. I carried out the cure strictly for many months — almost as strictly as Kuehne recommends, only breaking his rule by a small amount of milk and butter, and I was greatly the better for it. I took absolutely no animal food, and neither cheese nor eggs. If ever I relapsed into ordinary diet, after a very little time the old pains re-asserted themselves. My MARCH 219 friends declared I looked old and ugly, and most of my family thought the first illness would play the part of the legs in the epitaph : Two bad legs and a troublesome cough, But the legs it was that carried her off. My own faith in the matter only grew and grew, but it has taken four or five years for me to be absolutely free of pain, and even to this day I occasionally feel twinges, which I immediately treat by diminishing in quantity what I generally eat. The result is invariably satisfactory and unaccompanied by any feelings of weakness or fatigue. Last year I became the object of considerable jealousy to one of my friends, who could not understand why I had grown so much better. I, loth to encounter the anger of her numerous family by recommending my method, remarked — what I did not believe — that very likely my diet would not suit her. I am so tired of hearing that ' One man's meat is another man's poison ' ! Seeing the marked improvement in me, and thinking the matter over after I had left, she telegraphed to her London doctor, saying: 'Who is the great authority in London at this moment on gout and rheumatism ? ' He wired, back : ' Dr. Haig of Brook Street.' She accordingly went to him. When next we met, one of her first remarks was : ' A most extraordinary thing has happened to me. I have been to a new doctor for my rheumatism, and his printed paper on diet is in all essentials what you practise, except that he orders more milk and cheese.' She handed me the leaflet, and from this I got to know Dr. Haig and his most interesting book, ' Uric Acid as a Factor in the Causation of Disease.' This book is rather medical for the ordinary public, who had better begin with his two- shilling book called ' Diet and Food considered in Eelation to Strength and Power of Endurance, Training and 220 MORE POT-POURRI Athletics.' On Dr. Haig's recommendation I deserted the extreme strictness of the German cure, and I have undoubtedly felt stronger for taking more skimmed milk (separated would be better) and a little cheese, though whenever I am less well I go back to the Kuehne diet. It was the greatest satisfaction to me to find a man whose years of study and scientific investigations entirely corresponded with my own groping experiences. If any- body now ever asks me about the matter, I say : ' Bead Dr. Haig's books, and then consult him or not as you like.' His tables of diet are so severe that I am afraid they may tempt a great number of people to agree with the late Lord D , who, when sent a sample of sherry which was recommended to him as being essentially wholesome, wrote back that he found it so bitter and dry he much preferred the gout. Although it is rare to find a doctor who wiU recommend strict dieting in chronic cases, I think it is becoming equally rare for a doctor to make any objection if the patient himself proposes it. He will not risk offending a patient by not giving him medicines and by greatly reducing his food. One can hardly blame a doctor for this, and it brings us to the conclusion that the initiative in matters of diet and abstinence must come from the patients themselves. Not many people seemed to take any interest in the health allusions in my last book. Still I received the fol- lowing letter, which, in a chapter bound to be unpopular, the few who read it may find as interesting as I did : ' I have been specially interested in your health chapter, for if there is one subject more than another which ought to be thrashed out by the lay mind it is health. On it depends to a great extent the future progress of mankind. As a rule, individuals lean to the idea that it is not a question for themselves to think on. MARCH 221 They seem to imply that it is a question solely for the medical hierarchy. But these authorities are so hampered by the limitations engrained in them in their medical education that it is with difficulty any of them exercise a free mind on the subject. You have given examples, it is true, of some few; and I know a few more, both here and in America, who have broken away and have given full vent to their reasoning powers. All hail to them, but they want supporting. There is no doubt that if doctors were to take up the reforms honestly they would do good, inasmuch as there is a blind faith in them on the part of the majority of people. But when has a profession reformed itself ? All reforms come from out- side. ' There are two great assumptions on which medicos act, and on which they impel their patients to act. The first is : that it is positively necessary under all circumstances to eat every day in order to live. Dr. Keith, whose book I have just seen before I got yours, is an exception to this ; and Dr. Dewey, in America, in his "New Gospel of Health " is another. They show clearly that not only is it not necessary, but under certain conditions of illness it is positively injurious to eat. I have seen, I am sorry to say, food violently forced down the throat of a patient by a medical man when Nature was evidently telling the patient that food was no good, but, on the contrary, was adding to the troubles. This is quite irrespective of what is suitable food and what is not. All I maintain is, that at times no food at all is required, for it is then only by the absence of food that Nature finds time to recuperate herself. The second assumption that the Faculty as a body insist on is : that meat is absolutely necessary for strength. Meat is no doubt a concentrated food, but concentrated foods are not necessarily nourishing. On the contrary, the waste that comes from them is most 222 MORE POT-POURRI trying to all the organs of the body, which after a time break down entirely. There are heaps of foods which are natural foods, which easily assimilate, and which in their waste are not unduly trying. Then, no doubt, in meat there is decomposition always going on, which, when it is eaten by human beings, may produce fermentation lead- ing to serious diseases. Of course there are many other arguments against meat ; but as long as it is considered a positively necessary food, there is ho good using them. I find that with young people it is useless to preach against meat. They like it, they see everybody eating it, they are told that the Faculty consider it positively necessary, and, owing to their youth, they feel no ill-effects, except now and then a temporary derangement, which they attribute to something they don't like so much. The great thing with them is to urge abstemiousness and even at times total abstinence, and, when they feel ill, simple starvation. The day may come when they will find it best for themselves to give up meat. I only wish that I had been brought up to rely upon my own reason in dealing with illness. Half the ailments that mankind suffers from could be cured by Nature herself, if she were given time and were not forced. She is interfered with in every way by both doctor and patient. ' Power has been usurped by the Faculty. Very few men can stand power; they get to be assertive and dogmatic, and eventually become tyrants.' So I hear of bad health here, sufferings there, and, what we used to say of old people when we were young, ' cases of fifteen mortal maladies and yet Hving on to a good old age.' They live long because their constitutions are good ; they suffer much, in my opinion, because they eat what is not good for them, both as to quality and quantity, only adding to their ailments instead of diminish- ing them. The modern invalid always says : ' The MARCH 223 doctor has ordered me to eat well,' and feels his conscience absolved. This reminds me of a ratlier good old story which a doctor told me, when I was a girl in Brussels, as having happened to himself. A bishop who was eating stuffed turkey with this doctor on Good Friday excused himself to a punctilious friend, who was shown into the dining-room by accident, saying : ' Le docteur me le commando, et moi je lui donne absolution.' But can one imagine anything more hopelessly exasperating for poor doctors, who have to make then- living, than to find that loss of patients is the result if they venture even to ask in chronic cases what people eat and drink? We all know how they knock off food in cases of serious illness, though even then I think they still allow far too much. During convalescence it is often desirable for the patient to eat anything that he can digest. I know it will be said that the next generation may suffer from the results of a low diet, as the doctors are perpetually telling us that we have all suffered from the port wine drinking and high living of our ancestors. Nothing but time can prove this. In my youth heaps of doctors, especially on the Continent, still believed in bleeding, particularly in fever cases. Now this is as unknown as if it had never been practised at all. Is this right or wrong ? I see even restaurants now advertise suppers which are not indigestible ! An interesting pandering to the growing faith that good health comes far before good feeding. I was asked the other day to give a lecture on the right spending of money. Oh ! what a fraud these appeals to my knowledge or wisdom make me feel ! I who have so little knowledge of figures that I cannot even keep my own accounts ! But most certainly, if I were to give a lecture, I should say to everyone, high and low ; 224 MORE POT-POURRI ' Spend far less in food and drink.' To the under-fed and poor : ' Live twice as well as you do, on what you have, by spending judiciously.' To the farmers : ' Grow more peas and beans for wholesome human food.' And to the seeds- man : ' Sell these food-producing seeds much cheaper, and put the price on to something else.' I have said nothing about the cheapness of the diet I recommend, as it is not cheap if it does not make you well. If it does, it is very satisfactory, I think, to spend so very Utile on food ; and eating so much less at each meal is so delightfully comfortable ! I could not have beUeved some years ago that it was possible to keep in excellent health on so little. In Dr. Haig's little book ' Diet and Food ' he holds out a kind of millennium where cooks might cease to exist, and he gives a table of food requiring scarcely any cook- ing, and which yet contains what he considers a su£6cient amount of albumen. This might prove extremely use- ful under exceptional circumstances. A reform I should much hke to see is that, when a doctor leaves a house at the end of an illness, he himself should burn his prescriptions ; and that it might be made penal for chemists to make them up except by a doctor's orders. Doctors frequently give strong remedies in severe cases, but they themselves would be the first to regret these remedies being taken again and again on the smallest provocation by the patient. The insane desire to kill pain and to gain relief by narcotics and strength by tonics which pervades our modern society, from the youngest to the oldest, is in my opinion very likely to act more dele- teriously on the constitution than the excesses of past generations. People become aware of the loss of health, but the mysterious ways in which remedies may have injured us are wrapped in as complete darkness as is the origin of most of the diseases from which all classes suffer. MARCH 225 I wonder if other people have noticed, as I have done throughout my life, that the families where medicines are least in use are those of doctors themselves. This want of faith in drugs on their part was one of the first things which years ago opened my eyes. What strikes me is, how few people are really well ! And if they could put side by side the pleasure of eating food which is harmless, and the better health and strength this would bring, compared with the pleasure of eating large dinners and the feeling of the following morning thrown into the balance, I believe the bird-in-the-hand pleasure would lose most of its attractions. It has been a real surprise to me, though apparently doctors know it well, how vast a number of people would much rather be ill, or even die, than be convinced that the food they like does them harm. The young especially seem to think that one of the chief pleasures of life would be removed if they did not eat what they preferred, quite forgetting that fruit and sugar and many other good things are quite harmless — nay, beneficial — to the non-meat-eater. What we do daily soon ceases to be the penance that abstinence once a week was supposed to inflict. It may be said that • starving,' with many people, does not make them feel well. All I can say is, it is very seldom tried on the right lines ; at any rate, not for long enough time to give it a chance. It is curious how things repeat themselves. Sydney Smith says in one of his letters : ' All gentlemen and ladies eat too much. I made a calculation, and found I must have consumed some waggon-loads too much in the course of my life. Lock up the mouth, and you have gained the victory. I believe our friend Lady Morley has hit upon the right plan in dining modestly at two. When we are absorbed in side-dishes, and perplexed with variety of wines, she sits amongst us, lightly flirting with Q 226 MORE POT-POURRI a potato, in full possession of her faculties and. at liberty to make the best use of them — a liberty, it must be owned, she does not neglect. For how agreeable she is ! I hka Lady Morley ; she is what I call good com;pany.' The really difficult part of practising any form of diet, especially if you have gained immensely by the results, is the irritation it causes to the people who surround you. I was told the other day that having mentioned in a letter the fact that I had become a vegetarian was more than enough to account for my receiving no answer. If any sufferers feel tempted to follow my example of a strict diet, I strongly recommend them to do all in their power to make it as unobtrusive a factor in family life as possible. It will also be found a great advantage to those who go out in Society to cheat ; by which I mean, take things on your plate as a ' bhnd,' though you have no intention of eating them. The sym- pathy expressed lest you should kiU yourself, and the terror lest your influence should prove the death of some- body else, make life a martyrdom for a very insufficient cause. I never realised till this year that there is consider- able danger in a sudden change of diet, especially in hot weather and to those who are most in need of it. One is always hearing of cases where abstention from meat answers for a few months, and then has to be given up because the patient finds himself less well, and attributes everything to his change of diet. Dr. Haig fully explains the reason for this. He may, of course, be wrong in his deductions ; if he is right, it should lead to great changes in diet in this country through the conversion of the medical profession. One of the great advantages of the non-sentimental over the sentimental vegetarian is that in case dislike of foods occurs, as it very commonly does, and with it a MARCH 227 decided depression of the nervous system from the drop- ping of all stimulants, a slight return to ordinary diet tor a time may be beneficial. Anything is better than producing a nervous irritation against the diet. Patients at any rate are then able to realise for themselves whether it does them good or not, and are able to remember how they benefited at first from the cure and go back to it when they feel inclined. They must also remember that much that they suffer from is hereditary, and has to be con- tinually fought rather than cured. To attribute every ailment to the new diet, when people have lived on meat and stimulants all their lives, and had constant attacks of illness, is, to say the least of it, unreasonable. In the case of vegetarians Dr. Haig has told me that they often come to him insuflSciently nourished. It is specially easy for vegetarians to over-eat and yet be under-fed. I am the last to deny that many, and especially old people, have benefited from a purely meat diet (the ' Salisbury Cure ') when very strictly carried out, though I never tried it myself. All that I feel, and I feel it strongly, is that health is more likely to be bettered by only taking food that clearly improves the blood than by depending for cure on alterative medicines and tonics which only relieve for a time. True wisdom always brings us back to the old rule that moderation in all things is the best guide for every- body. The fact has long been known with regard to alcohol ; but it has only lately been acknowledged that tea, coffee, and beef or chicken tea, are also stimulants and not food, and are injurious to the nervous system. Who would not have laughed, a few years ago, at the statement that tea-drinking in large quantities produces a form of delirium tremens ? And yet the illness is now quite re- cognised as existing among the under-fed who drink tea in excess. The craving for stimulants of some kind is