The Lost Dahlia | Page 4

his favourite preachers, so that we
shall have the Reverend Edward So-and-so, and the Reverend John
Such-an-one, fraternising with the profane Ariels and Imogenes, the
Giaours and Me-doras of the old catalogue. So much the better.
Floriculture is amongst the most innocent and humanising of all
pleasures, and everything which tends to diffuse such pursuits amongst
those who have too few amusements, is a point gained for happiness
and for virtue.
We were even shown a bloom called the Phoebus, about as like to our
Phoebus "as I to Hercules." But the true Phoebus, "the real Simon
Pure," was as far to seek as ever.
Learnedly did I descant with the learned in dahlias over the merits of
my lost beauty. "It was a cupped flower, Mr. Sutton," quoth I, to my
agreeable and sympathising listener; (gardeners are a most cultivated
and gentlemanly race;) "a cupped dahlia, of the genuine metropolitan
shape; large as the Criterion, regular as the Springfield Rival, perfect as

Dodd's Mary, with a long bloom stalk like those good old flowers, the
Countess of Liverpool and the Widnall's Perfection. And such a free
blower, and so true! I am quite sure that there is not so good a dahlia
this year. I prefer it to 'Corinne,' over and over." And Mr. Sutton
assented and condoled, and I was as near to being comforted as
anybody could be, who had lost such a flower as the Phoebus.
After so many vain researches, most persons would have abandoned the
pursuit in despair. But despair is not in my nature. I have a comfortable
share of the quality which the possessor is wont to call
perseverance--whilst the uncivil world is apt to designate it by the
name of obstinacy--and do not easily give in. Then the chase, however
fruitless, led, like other chases, into beautiful scenery, and formed an
excuse for my visiting or revisiting many of the prettiest places in the
county.
Two of the most remarkable spots in the neighbourhood are, as it
happens, famous for their collections of dahlias--Strathfield-saye, the
seat of the Duke of Wellington, and the ruins of Reading Abbey.
Nothing can well be prettier than the drive to Strathfield-saye, passing,
as we do, through a great part of Heckfield Heath,* a tract of wild
woodland, a forest, or rather a chase, full of fine sylvan
beauty--thickets of fern and holly, and hawthorn and birch, surmounted
by oaks and beeches, and interspersed with lawny glades and deep
pools, letting light into the picture. Nothing can be prettier than the
approach to the duke's lodge. And the entrance to the demesne, through
a deep dell dark with magnificent firs, from which we emerge into a
finely wooded park of the richest verdure, is also striking and
impressive. But the distinctive feature of the place (for the mansion,
merely a comfortable and convenient nobleman's house, hardly
responds to the fame of its owner) is the grand avenue of noble elms,
three quarters of a mile long, which leads to the front door.
* It may be interesting to the lovers of literature to hear that my
accomplished friend Mrs. Trollope was "raised," as her friends the
Americans would say, upon this spot. Her father, the Rev. William
Milton, himself a very clever man, and an able mechanician and

engineer, held the living of Heckfield for many years.
It is difficult to imagine anything which more completely realises the
poetical fancy, that the pillars and arches of a Gothic cathedral were
borrowed from the interlacing of the branches of trees planted at stated
intervals, than this avenue, in which Nature has so completely
succeeded in outrivalling her handmaiden Art, that not a single trunk,
hardly even a bough or a twig, appears to mar the grand regularity of
the design as a piece of perspective. No cathedral aisle was ever more
perfect; and the effect, under every variety of aspect, the magical light
and shadow of the cold white moonshine, the cool green light of a
cloudy day, and the glancing sunbeams which pierce through the leafy
umbrage in the bright summer noon, are such as no words can convey.
Separately considered, each tree (and the north of Hampshire is
celebrated for the size and shape of its elms) is a model of stately
growth, and they are now just at perfection, probably about a hundred
and thirty years old. There is scarcely perhaps in the kingdom such
another avenue.
On one side of this noble approach is the garden, where, under the care
of the skilful and excellent gardener, Mr. Cooper, so many magnificent
dahlias are raised, but where, alas! the Phoebus was not; and between
that and the mansion is the sunny, shady paddock, with its rich pasture
and its roomy stable, where, for so many years,