The Lost Dahlia | Page 3

from such
divorces of the name from the thing; for our labels, sometimes written
upon parchment, sometimes upon leather, sometimes upon wood, as
each material happened to be recommended by gardening authorities,
and fastened on with packthread, or whip-cord, or silk twist, had
generally parted company from the roots, and frequently become
utterly illegible, producing a state of confusion which most
undoubtedly we never expected to regret: but this year we had followed
the one perfect system of labels of unglazed china, highly varnished
after writing on them, and fastened on by wire; and it had answered so
completely, that one, and one only, had broken from its moorings. No
hope could be gathered from that quarter. The Phoebus was gone. So
much was clear; and our loss being fully ascertained, we all began, as
the custom is, to divert our grief and exercise our ingenuity by different
guesses as to the fate of the vanished treasure.
My father, although certain that he had written the label, and wired the
root, had his misgivings about the place in which it had been deposited,
and half suspected that it had slipt in amongst a basket which we had

sent as a present to Ireland; I myself, judging from a similar accident
which had once happened to a choice hyacinth bulb, partly thought that
one or other of us might have put it for care and safety in some such
very snug corner, that it would be six months or more before it turned
up; John, impressed with a high notion of the money-value of the
property and estimating it something as a keeper of the regalia might
estimate the most precious of the crown jewels, boldly affirmed that it
was stolen; and Dick, who had just had a démêlé with the cook, upon
the score of her refusal to dress a beef-steak for a sick greyhound,
asserted, between jest and earnest, that that hard-hearted official had
either ignorantly or maliciously boiled the root for a Jerusalem
artichoke, and that we, who stood lamenting over our regretted Phoebus,
had actually eaten it, dished up with white sauce. John turned pale at
the thought. The beautiful story of the Falcon, in Boccaccio, which the
young knight killed to regale his mistress, or the still more tragical
history of Couci, who minced his rival's heart, and served it up to his
wife, could not have affected him more deeply. We grieved over our
lost dahlia, as if it had been a thing of life.
Grieving, however, would not repair our loss; and we determined, as
the only chance of becoming again possessed of this beautiful flower,
to visit, as soon as the dahlia season began, all the celebrated
collections in the neighbourhood, especially all those from which there
was any chance of our having procured the root which had so
mysteriously vanished.
Early in September, I set forth on my voyage of discovery--my voyages,
I ought to say; for every day I and my pony-phaeton made our way to
whatever garden within our reach bore a sufficiently high character to
be suspected of harbouring the good Dahlia Phoebus.
Monday we called at Lady A.'s; Tuesday at General B's; Wednesday at
Sir John C's; Thursday at Mrs. D's; Friday at Lord E's; and Saturday at
Mr. F.'s. We might as well have staid at home; not a Phoebus had they,
or anything like one.
We then visited the nurseries, from Brown's, at Slough, a princely
establishment, worthy of its regal neighbourhood, to the pretty rural

gardens at South Warnborough, not forgetting our own most intelligent
and obliging nurseryman, Mr. Sutton of Reading--(Belford Regis, I
mean)--whose collection of flowers of all sorts is amongst the most
choice and select that I have ever known. Hundreds of magnificent
blossoms did we see in our progress, but not the blossom we wanted.
There was no lack, heaven knows, of dahlias of the desired colour.
Besides a score of "Orange Perfections," bearing the names of their
respective growers, we were introduced to four Princes of Orange,
three Kings of Holland, two Williams the Third, and one Lord Roden.*
* The nomenclature of dahlias is a curious sign of the times. It rivals in
oddity that of the Racing Calendar. Next to the peerage, Shakspeare
and Homer seem to be the chief sources whence they have derived their
appellations. Thus we have Hectors and Dioedes of all colours, a very
black Othello, and a very fair Desdemona. One beautiful blossom,
which seems like a white ground thickly rouged with carmine, is called
"the Honourable Mrs. Harris;" and it is droll to observe how
punctiliously the working gardeners retain the dignified prefix in
speaking of the flower. I heard the other day of a serious dahlia grower
who had called his seedlings after