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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Dahlia, by Mary Russell Mitford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lost Dahlia
+
+Author: Mary Russell Mitford
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22837]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST DAHLIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST DAHLIA.
+
+By Mary Russell Mitford
+
+
+If to have "had losses" be, as affirmed by Dogberry in one of
+Shakspeare's most charming plays, and corroborated by Sir Walter Scott
+in one of his most charming romances--(those two names do well in
+juxtaposition, the great Englishman! the great Scotsman!)--If to have
+"had losses" be a main proof of credit and respectability, then am I
+one of the most responsible persons in the whole county of Berks. To say
+nothing of the graver matters which figure in a banker's book, and make,
+in these days of pounds, shillings, and pence, so large a part of
+the domestic tragedy of life--putting wholly aside all the grander
+transitions of property in house and land, of money on mortgage, and
+money in the funds--(and yet I might put in my claim to no trifling
+amount of ill luck in that way also, if I had a mind to try my hand at
+a dismal story)--counting for nought all weightier grievances, there is
+not a lady within twenty miles who can produce so large a list of small
+losses as my unfortunate self.
+
+From the day when, a tiny damsel of some four years old, I first had a
+pocket-handkerchief to lose, down to this very night--I will not say how
+many years after--when, as I have just discovered, I have most certainly
+lost from my pocket the new cambric kerchief which I deposited therein a
+little before dinner, scarcely a week has passed without some part of
+my goods and chattels being returned missing. Gloves, muffs, parasols,
+reticules, have each of them a provoking knack of falling from my
+hands; boas glide from my neck, rings slip from my fingers, the bow has
+vanished from my cap, the veil from my bonnet, the sandal from my foot,
+the brooch from my collar, and the collar from my brooch. The trinket
+which I liked best, a jewelled pin, the first gift of a dear friend,
+(luckily the friendship is not necessarily appended to the token,)
+dropped from my shawl in the midst of the high road; and of shawls
+themselves, there is no end to the loss. The two prettiest that ever
+I had in my life, one a splendid specimen of Glasgow manufacture--a
+scarlet hardly to be distinguished from Cashmere--the other a lighter
+and cheaper fabric, white in the centre, with a delicate sprig, and
+a border harmoniously compounded of the deepest blue, the brightest
+orange, and the richest brown, disappeared in two successive summers
+and winters, in the very bloom of their novelty, from the folds of
+the phaeton, in which they had been deposited for safety--fairly blown
+overboard! If I left things about, they were lost. If I put them away,
+they were lost. They were lost in the drawers--they were lost out. And if
+for a miracle I had them safe under lock and key, why, then, I lost my
+keys! I was certainly the most unlucky person under the sun. If there
+was nothing else to lose, I was fain to lose myself--I mean my way;
+bewildered in these Aberleigh lanes of ours, or in the woodland recesses
+of the Penge, as if haunted by that fairy, Robin Good-fellow, who led
+Hermia and Helena such a dance in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Alas!
+that there should be no Fairies now-a-days, or rather no true
+believers in Fairies, to help us to bear the burthen of our own mortal
+carelessness.
+
+It was not quite all carelessness, though! Some ill luck did mingle with
+a great deal of mismanagement, as the "one poor happ'orth of bread"
+with the huge gallon of sack in the bill of which Poins picked
+Falstaff's pocket when he was asleep behind the arras. Things belonging
+to me, or things that I cared for, did contrive to get lost, without my
+having any hand in the matter. For instance, if out of the variety of
+"talking birds," starlings, jackdaws, and magpies, which my father
+delights to entertain, any one particularly diverting or accomplished,
+more than usually coaxing and mischievous, happened to attract my
+attention, and to pay me the compliment of following at my heels,
+or perching upon my shoulder, the gentleman was sure to hop off. My
+favourite mare, Pearl, the pretty docile creature which draws my little
+phaeton, has such a talent for leaping, that she is no sooner turned out
+in either of our meadows, than she disappears. And Dash himself, paragon
+of spaniels, pet of pets, beauty of beauties, has only one shade of
+imperfection--would be thoroughly faultless, if it were not for a slight
+tendency to run away. He is regularly lost four or five times every
+winter, and has been oftener cried through the streets of Belford, and
+advertised in the county newspapers, than comports with a dog of his
+dignity. Now, these mischances clearly belong to that class of accidents
+commonly called casualties, and are quite unconnected with any infirmity
+of temperament on my part. I cannot help Pearl's proficiency in jumping,
+nor Dash's propensity to wander through the country; neither had I any
+hand in the loss which has given its title to this paper, and which,
+after so much previous dallying, I am at length about to narrate.
+
+The autumn before last, that is to say, above a year ago, the boast and
+glory of my little garden was a dahlia called the Phoebus. How it came
+there, nobody very distinctly knew, nor where it came from, nor how we
+came by it, nor how it came by its own most appropriate name. Neither
+the lad who tends our flowers, nor my father, the person chiefly
+concerned in procuring them, nor I myself, who more even than my father
+or John take delight and pride in their beauty, could recollect who gave
+us this most splendid plant, or who first instructed us as to the style
+and title by which it was known. Certes never was blossom fitlier
+named. Regular as the sun's face in an almanack, it had a tint of
+golden scarlet, of ruddy yellow, which realised Shakspeare's gorgeous
+expression of "flame-coloured." The sky at sunset sometimes puts on
+such a hue, or a fire at Christmas when it burns red as well as bright.
+The blossom was dazzling to look upon. It seemed as if there were light
+in the leaves, like that coloured-lamp of a flower, the Oriental Poppy.
+Phoebus was not too glorious a name for that dahlia. The Golden-haired
+Apollo might be proud of such an emblem. It was worthy of the god of
+day; a very Phoenix of floral beauty.
+
+Every dahlia fancier who came into our garden or who had an opportunity
+of seeing a bloom elsewhere; and, sooth to say, we were rather
+ostentatious in our display; John put it into stands, and jars,
+and baskets, and dishes; Dick stuck it into Dash's collar, his own
+button-hole, and Pearl's bridle; my father presented it to such lady
+visiters as he delighted to honour; and I, who have the habit of
+dangling a flower, generally a sweet one, caught myself more than once
+rejecting the spicy clove and the starry jessamine, the blossomed myrtle
+and the tuberose, my old fragrant favourites, for this scentless (but
+triumphant) beauty; everybody who beheld the Phoebus begged for a plant
+or a cutting; and we, generous in our ostentation, willing to redeem
+the vice by the virtue, promised as many plants and cuttings as we could
+reasonably imagine the root might be made to produce*--perhaps rather
+more; and half the dahlia growers round rejoiced over the glories of the
+gorgeous flower, and speculated, as the wont is now, upon seedling after
+seedling to the twentieth generation.
+
+     * It is wonderful how many plants may, by dint of forcing,
+     and cutting and forcing again, be extracted from one root.
+     But the experiment is not always safe. Nature sometimes
+     avenges herself for the encroachments of art, by weakening
+     the progeny. The Napoleon Dahlia, for instance, the finest
+     of last year's seedlings, being over-propagated, this season
+     has hardly produced one perfect bloom, even in the hands of
+     the most skilful cultivators.
+
+Alas for the vanity of human expectations! February came, the
+twenty-second of February, the very St. Valentine of dahlias, when
+the roots which have been buried in the ground during the winter are
+disinterred, and placed in a hotbed to put forth their first shoots
+previous to the grand operations of potting and dividing them. Of course
+the first object of search in the choicest corner of the nicely labelled
+hoard, was the Phoebus: but no Phoebus was forthcoming; root and label
+had vanished bodily! There was, to be sure, a dahlia without a label,
+which we would gladly have transformed into the missing treasure; but as
+we speedily discovered a label without a dahlia, it was but too obvious
+that they belonged to each other. Until last year we might have had
+plenty of the consolation which results 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 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, Copenhagen, the
+charger who carried the Duke at Waterloo, formed so great an object of
+attraction to the visiters of Strathfield-saye.* Then came the house
+itself and then I returned home. Well! this was one beautiful and
+fruitless drive. The ruins of Reading Abbey formed another as fruitless,
+and still more beautiful.
+
+     * Copenhagen--(I had the honour of naming one of Mr.
+     Cooper's dahlias after him--a sort of _bay_ dahlia, if I may
+     be permitted the expression)--Copenhagen was a most
+     interesting horse. He died last year at the age of twenty-
+     seven. He was therefore in his prime on the day of Waterloo,
+     when the duke (then and still a man of iron) rode him for
+     seventeen hours and a half, without dismounting. When his
+     Grace got off, he patted him, and the horse kicked, to the
+     great delight of his brave rider, as it proved that he was
+     not beaten by that tremendous day's work. After his return,
+     this paddock was assigned to him, in which he passed the
+     rest of his life in the most perfect comfort that can be
+     imagined; fed twice a-day, (latterly upon oats broken for
+     him,) with a comfortable stable to retire to, and a rich
+     pasture in which to range. The late amiable duchess used
+     regularly to feed him with bread, and this kindness had
+     given him the habit, (especially after her death,) of
+     approaching every lady with the most confiding familiarity.
+     He had been a fine animal, of middle size and a chestnut
+     colour, but latterly he exhibited an interesting specimen of
+     natural decay, in a state as nearly that of nature as can
+     well be found in a civilised country. He had lost an eye
+     from age, and had become lean and feeble, and, in the manner
+     in which he approached even a casual visiter, there was
+     something of the demand of sympathy, the appeal to human
+     kindness, which one has so often observed from a very old
+     dog towards his master. Poor Copenhagen, who, when alive,
+     furnished so many reliques from his mane and tail to
+     enthusiastic young ladies, who had his hair set in brooches
+     and rings, was, after being interred with military honours,
+     dug up by some miscreant, (never, I believe, discovered,)
+     and one of his hoofs cut off, it is to be presumed, for a
+     memorial, although one that would hardly go in the compass
+     of a ring.  A very fine portrait of Copenhagen has been
+     executed by my young friend Edmund Havell, a youth of
+     seventeen, whose genius as an animal painter, will certainly
+     place him second only to Landseer.
+
+Whether in the "palmy state" of the faith of Rome, the pillared aisles
+of the Abbey church might have vied in grandeur with the avenue at
+Strathfield-saye, I can hardly say; but certainly, as they stand, the
+venerable arched gateway, the rock-like masses of wall, the crumbling
+cloisters, and the exquisite finish of the surbases of the columns and
+other fragments, fresh as if chiselled yesterday, which are re-appearing
+in the excavations now making, there is an interest which leaves
+the grandeur of life, palaces and their pageantry, parks and their
+adornments, all grandeur except the indestructible grandeur of nature,
+at an immeasurable distance. The place was a history. Centuries passed
+before us as we thought of the magnificent monastery, the third in size
+and splendour in England, with its area of thirty acres between the
+walls--and gazed upon it now!
+
+And yet, even now, how beautiful! Trees of every growth mingling with
+those grey ruins, creepers wreathing their fantastic garlands around
+the mouldering arches, gorgeous flowers flourishing in the midst of that
+decay! I almost forgot my search for the dear Phoebus, as I rambled with
+my friend Mr. Malone, the gardener, a man who would in any station be
+remarkable for acuteness and acquirement, amongst the august remains of
+the venerable abbey, with the history of which he was as conversant
+as with his own immediate profession. There was no speaking of smaller
+objects in the presence of the mighty past!
+
+Gradually chilled by so much unsuccess, the ardour of my pursuit
+began to abate. I began to admit the merits of other dahlias of divers
+colours, and actually caught myself committing the inconstancy of
+considering which of the four Princes of Orange I should bespeak for
+next year. Time, in short, was beginning to play his part as the great
+comforter of human afflictions, and the poor Phoebus seemed as likely to
+be forgotten as a last year's bonnet, or a last week's newspaper--when,
+happening to walk with my father to look at a field of his, a pretty bit
+of upland pasture about a mile off, I was struck, in one corner where
+the manure for dressing had been deposited, and a heap of earth and dung
+still remained, to be spread, I suppose, next spring, with some
+tall plant surmounted with bright flowers. Could it be?--was it
+possible?--did my eyes play me false?--No; there it was, upon a
+dunghill--the object of all my researches and lamentations, the
+identical Phoebus! the lost dahlia!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Dahlia, by Mary Russell Mitford
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+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Lost Dahlia, by Mary Russell Mitford
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Dahlia, by Mary Russell Mitford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lost Dahlia
+
+Author: Mary Russell Mitford
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22837]
+Last Updated: January 9, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST DAHLIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE LOST DAHLIA.
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Mary Russell Mitford
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If to have "had losses" be, as affirmed by Dogberry in one of Shakspeare's
+      most charming plays, and corroborated by Sir Walter Scott in one of his
+      most charming romances&mdash;(those two names do well in juxtaposition,
+      the great Englishman! the great Scotsman!)&mdash;If to have "had losses"
+      be a main proof of credit and respectability, then am I one of the most
+      responsible persons in the whole county of Berks. To say nothing of the
+      graver matters which figure in a banker's book, and make, in these days of
+      pounds, shillings, and pence, so large a part of the domestic tragedy of
+      life&mdash;putting wholly aside all the grander transitions of property in
+      house and land, of money on mortgage, and money in the funds&mdash;(and
+      yet I might put in my claim to no trifling amount of ill luck in that way
+      also, if I had a mind to try my hand at a dismal story)&mdash;counting for
+      nought all weightier grievances, there is not a lady within twenty miles
+      who can produce so large a list of small losses as my unfortunate self.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the day when, a tiny damsel of some four years old, I first had a
+      pocket-handkerchief to lose, down to this very night&mdash;I will not say
+      how many years after&mdash;when, as I have just discovered, I have most
+      certainly lost from my pocket the new cambric kerchief which I deposited
+      therein a little before dinner, scarcely a week has passed without some
+      part of my goods and chattels being returned missing. Gloves, muffs,
+      parasols, reticules, have each of them a provoking knack of falling from
+      my hands; boas glide from my neck, rings slip from my fingers, the bow has
+      vanished from my cap, the veil from my bonnet, the sandal from my foot,
+      the brooch from my collar, and the collar from my brooch. The trinket
+      which I liked best, a jewelled pin, the first gift of a dear friend,
+      (luckily the friendship is not necessarily appended to the token,) dropped
+      from my shawl in the midst of the high road; and of shawls themselves,
+      there is no end to the loss. The two prettiest that ever I had in my life,
+      one a splendid specimen of Glasgow manufacture&mdash;a scarlet hardly to
+      be distinguished from Cashmere&mdash;the other a lighter and cheaper
+      fabric, white in the centre, with a delicate sprig, and a border
+      harmoniously compounded of the deepest blue, the brightest orange, and the
+      richest brown, disappeared in two successive summers and winters, in the
+      very bloom of their novelty, from the folds of the phaeton, in which they
+      had been deposited for safety&mdash;fairly blown overboard! If I left
+      things about, they were lost. If I put them away, they were lost. They
+      were lost in the drawers&mdash;they were lost out. And if for a miracle I
+      had them safe under lock and key, why, then, I lost my keys! I was
+      certainly the most unlucky person under the sun. If there was nothing else
+      to lose, I was fain to lose myself&mdash;I mean my way; bewildered in
+      these Aberleigh lanes of ours, or in the woodland recesses of the Penge,
+      as if haunted by that fairy, Robin Good-fellow, who led Hermia and Helena
+      such a dance in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Alas! that there should be no
+      Fairies now-a-days, or rather no true believers in Fairies, to help us to
+      bear the burthen of our own mortal carelessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not quite all carelessness, though! Some ill luck did mingle with a
+      great deal of mismanagement, as the "one poor happ'orth of bread" with the
+      huge gallon of sack in the bill of which Poins picked Falstaff's pocket
+      when he was asleep behind the arras. Things belonging to me, or things
+      that I cared for, did contrive to get lost, without my having any hand in
+      the matter. For instance, if out of the variety of "talking birds,"
+      starlings, jackdaws, and magpies, which my father delights to entertain,
+      any one particularly diverting or accomplished, more than usually coaxing
+      and mischievous, happened to attract my attention, and to pay me the
+      compliment of following at my heels, or perching upon my shoulder, the
+      gentleman was sure to hop off. My favourite mare, Pearl, the pretty docile
+      creature which draws my little phaeton, has such a talent for leaping,
+      that she is no sooner turned out in either of our meadows, than she
+      disappears. And Dash himself, paragon of spaniels, pet of pets, beauty of
+      beauties, has only one shade of imperfection&mdash;would be thoroughly
+      faultless, if it were not for a slight tendency to run away. He is
+      regularly lost four or five times every winter, and has been oftener cried
+      through the streets of Belford, and advertised in the county newspapers,
+      than comports with a dog of his dignity. Now, these mischances clearly
+      belong to that class of accidents commonly called casualties, and are
+      quite unconnected with any infirmity of temperament on my part. I cannot
+      help Pearl's proficiency in jumping, nor Dash's propensity to wander
+      through the country; neither had I any hand in the loss which has given
+      its title to this paper, and which, after so much previous dallying, I am
+      at length about to narrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The autumn before last, that is to say, above a year ago, the boast and
+      glory of my little garden was a dahlia called the Phoebus. How it came
+      there, nobody very distinctly knew, nor where it came from, nor how we
+      came by it, nor how it came by its own most appropriate name. Neither the
+      lad who tends our flowers, nor my father, the person chiefly concerned in
+      procuring them, nor I myself, who more even than my father or John take
+      delight and pride in their beauty, could recollect who gave us this most
+      splendid plant, or who first instructed us as to the style and title by
+      which it was known. Certes never was blossom fitlier named. Regular as the
+      sun's face in an almanack, it had a tint of golden scarlet, of ruddy
+      yellow, which realised Shakspeare's gorgeous expression of
+      "flame-coloured." The sky at sunset sometimes puts on such a hue, or a
+      fire at Christmas when it burns red as well as bright. The blossom was
+      dazzling to look upon. It seemed as if there were light in the leaves,
+      like that coloured-lamp of a flower, the Oriental Poppy. Phoebus was not
+      too glorious a name for that dahlia. The Golden-haired Apollo might be
+      proud of such an emblem. It was worthy of the god of day; a very Phoenix
+      of floral beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every dahlia fancier who came into our garden or who had an opportunity of
+      seeing a bloom elsewhere; and, sooth to say, we were rather ostentatious
+      in our display; John put it into stands, and jars, and baskets, and
+      dishes; Dick stuck it into Dash's collar, his own button-hole, and Pearl's
+      bridle; my father presented it to such lady visiters as he delighted to
+      honour; and I, who have the habit of dangling a flower, generally a sweet
+      one, caught myself more than once rejecting the spicy clove and the starry
+      jessamine, the blossomed myrtle and the tuberose, my old fragrant
+      favourites, for this scentless (but triumphant) beauty; everybody who
+      beheld the Phoebus begged for a plant or a cutting; and we, generous in
+      our ostentation, willing to redeem the vice by the virtue, promised as
+      many plants and cuttings as we could reasonably imagine the root might be
+      made to produce*&mdash;perhaps rather more; and half the dahlia growers
+      round rejoiced over the glories of the gorgeous flower, and speculated, as
+      the wont is now, upon seedling after seedling to the twentieth generation.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * It is wonderful how many plants may, by dint of forcing,
+     and cutting and forcing again, be extracted from one root.
+     But the experiment is not always safe. Nature sometimes
+     avenges herself for the encroachments of art, by weakening
+     the progeny. The Napoleon Dahlia, for instance, the finest
+     of last year's seedlings, being over-propagated, this season
+     has hardly produced one perfect bloom, even in the hands of
+     the most skilful cultivators.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Alas for the vanity of human expectations! February came, the
+      twenty-second of February, the very St. Valentine of dahlias, when the
+      roots which have been buried in the ground during the winter are
+      disinterred, and placed in a hotbed to put forth their first shoots
+      previous to the grand operations of potting and dividing them. Of course
+      the first object of search in the choicest corner of the nicely labelled
+      hoard, was the Phoebus: but no Phoebus was forthcoming; root and label had
+      vanished bodily! There was, to be sure, a dahlia without a label, which we
+      would gladly have transformed into the missing treasure; but as we
+      speedily discovered a label without a dahlia, it was but too obvious that
+      they belonged to each other. Until last year we might have had plenty of
+      the consolation which results 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in September, I set forth on my voyage of discovery&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;(Belford Regis, I mean)&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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 <i>serious</i> dahlia grower who had called his
+     seedlings after 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>are</i> 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;whilst
+      the uncivil world is apt to designate it by the name of obstinacy&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the most remarkable spots in the neighbourhood are, as it happens,
+      famous for their collections of dahlias&mdash;Strathfield-saye, the seat
+      of the Duke of Wellington, and the ruins of Reading Abbey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, Copenhagen, the charger who
+      carried the Duke at Waterloo, formed so great an object of attraction to
+      the visiters of Strathfield-saye.* Then came the house itself and then I
+      returned home. Well! this was one beautiful and fruitless drive. The ruins
+      of Reading Abbey formed another as fruitless, and still more beautiful.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Copenhagen&mdash;(I had the honour of naming one of Mr.
+     Cooper's dahlias after him&mdash;a sort of <i>bay</i> dahlia, if I may
+     be permitted the expression)&mdash;Copenhagen was a most
+     interesting horse. He died last year at the age of twenty-
+     seven. He was therefore in his prime on the day of Waterloo,
+     when the duke (then and still a man of iron) rode him for
+     seventeen hours and a half, without dismounting. When his
+     Grace got off, he patted him, and the horse kicked, to the
+     great delight of his brave rider, as it proved that he was
+     not beaten by that tremendous day's work. After his return,
+     this paddock was assigned to him, in which he passed the
+     rest of his life in the most perfect comfort that can be
+     imagined; fed twice a-day, (latterly upon oats broken for
+     him,) with a comfortable stable to retire to, and a rich
+     pasture in which to range. The late amiable duchess used
+     regularly to feed him with bread, and this kindness had
+     given him the habit, (especially after her death,) of
+     approaching every lady with the most confiding familiarity.
+     He had been a fine animal, of middle size and a chestnut
+     colour, but latterly he exhibited an interesting specimen of
+     natural decay, in a state as nearly that of nature as can
+     well be found in a civilised country. He had lost an eye
+     from age, and had become lean and feeble, and, in the manner
+     in which he approached even a casual visiter, there was
+     something of the demand of sympathy, the appeal to human
+     kindness, which one has so often observed from a very old
+     dog towards his master. Poor Copenhagen, who, when alive,
+     furnished so many reliques from his mane and tail to
+     enthusiastic young ladies, who had his hair set in brooches
+     and rings, was, after being interred with military honours,
+     dug up by some miscreant, (never, I believe, discovered,)
+     and one of his hoofs cut off, it is to be presumed, for a
+     memorial, although one that would hardly go in the compass
+     of a ring.  A very fine portrait of Copenhagen has been
+     executed by my young friend Edmund Havell, a youth of
+     seventeen, whose genius as an animal painter, will certainly
+     place him second only to Landseer.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Whether in the "palmy state" of the faith of Rome, the pillared aisles of
+      the Abbey church might have vied in grandeur with the avenue at
+      Strathfield-saye, I can hardly say; but certainly, as they stand, the
+      venerable arched gateway, the rock-like masses of wall, the crumbling
+      cloisters, and the exquisite finish of the surbases of the columns and
+      other fragments, fresh as if chiselled yesterday, which are re-appearing
+      in the excavations now making, there is an interest which leaves the
+      grandeur of life, palaces and their pageantry, parks and their adornments,
+      all grandeur except the indestructible grandeur of nature, at an
+      immeasurable distance. The place was a history. Centuries passed before us
+      as we thought of the magnificent monastery, the third in size and
+      splendour in England, with its area of thirty acres between the walls&mdash;and
+      gazed upon it now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, even now, how beautiful! Trees of every growth mingling with
+      those grey ruins, creepers wreathing their fantastic garlands around the
+      mouldering arches, gorgeous flowers flourishing in the midst of that
+      decay! I almost forgot my search for the dear Phoebus, as I rambled with
+      my friend Mr. Malone, the gardener, a man who would in any station be
+      remarkable for acuteness and acquirement, amongst the august remains of
+      the venerable abbey, with the history of which he was as conversant as
+      with his own immediate profession. There was no speaking of smaller
+      objects in the presence of the mighty past!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually chilled by so much unsuccess, the ardour of my pursuit began to
+      abate. I began to admit the merits of other dahlias of divers colours, and
+      actually caught myself committing the inconstancy of considering which of
+      the four Princes of Orange I should bespeak for next year. Time, in short,
+      was beginning to play his part as the great comforter of human
+      afflictions, and the poor Phoebus seemed as likely to be forgotten as a
+      last year's bonnet, or a last week's newspaper&mdash;when, happening to
+      walk with my father to look at a field of his, a pretty bit of upland
+      pasture about a mile off, I was struck, in one corner where the manure for
+      dressing had been deposited, and a heap of earth and dung still remained,
+      to be spread, I suppose, next spring, with some tall plant surmounted with
+      bright flowers. Could it be?&mdash;was it possible?&mdash;did my eyes play
+      me false?&mdash;No; there it was, upon a dunghill&mdash;the object of all
+      my researches and lamentations, the identical Phoebus! the lost dahlia!
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Dahlia, by Mary Russell Mitford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lost Dahlia
+
+Author: Mary Russell Mitford
+
+Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22837]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST DAHLIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST DAHLIA.
+
+By Mary Russell Mitford
+
+
+If to have "had losses" be, as affirmed by Dogberry in one of
+Shakspeare's most charming plays, and corroborated by Sir Walter Scott
+in one of his most charming romances--(those two names do well in
+juxtaposition, the great Englishman! the great Scotsman!)--If to have
+"had losses" be a main proof of credit and respectability, then am I
+one of the most responsible persons in the whole county of Berks. To say
+nothing of the graver matters which figure in a banker's book, and make,
+in these days of pounds, shillings, and pence, so large a part of
+the domestic tragedy of life--putting wholly aside all the grander
+transitions of property in house and land, of money on mortgage, and
+money in the funds--(and yet I might put in my claim to no trifling
+amount of ill luck in that way also, if I had a mind to try my hand at
+a dismal story)--counting for nought all weightier grievances, there is
+not a lady within twenty miles who can produce so large a list of small
+losses as my unfortunate self.
+
+From the day when, a tiny damsel of some four years old, I first had a
+pocket-handkerchief to lose, down to this very night--I will not say how
+many years after--when, as I have just discovered, I have most certainly
+lost from my pocket the new cambric kerchief which I deposited therein a
+little before dinner, scarcely a week has passed without some part of
+my goods and chattels being returned missing. Gloves, muffs, parasols,
+reticules, have each of them a provoking knack of falling from my
+hands; boas glide from my neck, rings slip from my fingers, the bow has
+vanished from my cap, the veil from my bonnet, the sandal from my foot,
+the brooch from my collar, and the collar from my brooch. The trinket
+which I liked best, a jewelled pin, the first gift of a dear friend,
+(luckily the friendship is not necessarily appended to the token,)
+dropped from my shawl in the midst of the high road; and of shawls
+themselves, there is no end to the loss. The two prettiest that ever
+I had in my life, one a splendid specimen of Glasgow manufacture--a
+scarlet hardly to be distinguished from Cashmere--the other a lighter
+and cheaper fabric, white in the centre, with a delicate sprig, and
+a border harmoniously compounded of the deepest blue, the brightest
+orange, and the richest brown, disappeared in two successive summers
+and winters, in the very bloom of their novelty, from the folds of
+the phaeton, in which they had been deposited for safety--fairly blown
+overboard! If I left things about, they were lost. If I put them away,
+they were lost. They were lost in the drawers--they were lost out. And if
+for a miracle I had them safe under lock and key, why, then, I lost my
+keys! I was certainly the most unlucky person under the sun. If there
+was nothing else to lose, I was fain to lose myself--I mean my way;
+bewildered in these Aberleigh lanes of ours, or in the woodland recesses
+of the Penge, as if haunted by that fairy, Robin Good-fellow, who led
+Hermia and Helena such a dance in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Alas!
+that there should be no Fairies now-a-days, or rather no true
+believers in Fairies, to help us to bear the burthen of our own mortal
+carelessness.
+
+It was not quite all carelessness, though! Some ill luck did mingle with
+a great deal of mismanagement, as the "one poor happ'orth of bread"
+with the huge gallon of sack in the bill of which Poins picked
+Falstaff's pocket when he was asleep behind the arras. Things belonging
+to me, or things that I cared for, did contrive to get lost, without my
+having any hand in the matter. For instance, if out of the variety of
+"talking birds," starlings, jackdaws, and magpies, which my father
+delights to entertain, any one particularly diverting or accomplished,
+more than usually coaxing and mischievous, happened to attract my
+attention, and to pay me the compliment of following at my heels,
+or perching upon my shoulder, the gentleman was sure to hop off. My
+favourite mare, Pearl, the pretty docile creature which draws my little
+phaeton, has such a talent for leaping, that she is no sooner turned out
+in either of our meadows, than she disappears. And Dash himself, paragon
+of spaniels, pet of pets, beauty of beauties, has only one shade of
+imperfection--would be thoroughly faultless, if it were not for a slight
+tendency to run away. He is regularly lost four or five times every
+winter, and has been oftener cried through the streets of Belford, and
+advertised in the county newspapers, than comports with a dog of his
+dignity. Now, these mischances clearly belong to that class of accidents
+commonly called casualties, and are quite unconnected with any infirmity
+of temperament on my part. I cannot help Pearl's proficiency in jumping,
+nor Dash's propensity to wander through the country; neither had I any
+hand in the loss which has given its title to this paper, and which,
+after so much previous dallying, I am at length about to narrate.
+
+The autumn before last, that is to say, above a year ago, the boast and
+glory of my little garden was a dahlia called the Phoebus. How it came
+there, nobody very distinctly knew, nor where it came from, nor how we
+came by it, nor how it came by its own most appropriate name. Neither
+the lad who tends our flowers, nor my father, the person chiefly
+concerned in procuring them, nor I myself, who more even than my father
+or John take delight and pride in their beauty, could recollect who gave
+us this most splendid plant, or who first instructed us as to the style
+and title by which it was known. Certes never was blossom fitlier
+named. Regular as the sun's face in an almanack, it had a tint of
+golden scarlet, of ruddy yellow, which realised Shakspeare's gorgeous
+expression of "flame-coloured." The sky at sunset sometimes puts on
+such a hue, or a fire at Christmas when it burns red as well as bright.
+The blossom was dazzling to look upon. It seemed as if there were light
+in the leaves, like that coloured-lamp of a flower, the Oriental Poppy.
+Phoebus was not too glorious a name for that dahlia. The Golden-haired
+Apollo might be proud of such an emblem. It was worthy of the god of
+day; a very Phoenix of floral beauty.
+
+Every dahlia fancier who came into our garden or who had an opportunity
+of seeing a bloom elsewhere; and, sooth to say, we were rather
+ostentatious in our display; John put it into stands, and jars,
+and baskets, and dishes; Dick stuck it into Dash's collar, his own
+button-hole, and Pearl's bridle; my father presented it to such lady
+visiters as he delighted to honour; and I, who have the habit of
+dangling a flower, generally a sweet one, caught myself more than once
+rejecting the spicy clove and the starry jessamine, the blossomed myrtle
+and the tuberose, my old fragrant favourites, for this scentless (but
+triumphant) beauty; everybody who beheld the Phoebus begged for a plant
+or a cutting; and we, generous in our ostentation, willing to redeem
+the vice by the virtue, promised as many plants and cuttings as we could
+reasonably imagine the root might be made to produce*--perhaps rather
+more; and half the dahlia growers round rejoiced over the glories of the
+gorgeous flower, and speculated, as the wont is now, upon seedling after
+seedling to the twentieth generation.
+
+     * It is wonderful how many plants may, by dint of forcing,
+     and cutting and forcing again, be extracted from one root.
+     But the experiment is not always safe. Nature sometimes
+     avenges herself for the encroachments of art, by weakening
+     the progeny. The Napoleon Dahlia, for instance, the finest
+     of last year's seedlings, being over-propagated, this season
+     has hardly produced one perfect bloom, even in the hands of
+     the most skilful cultivators.
+
+Alas for the vanity of human expectations! February came, the
+twenty-second of February, the very St. Valentine of dahlias, when
+the roots which have been buried in the ground during the winter are
+disinterred, and placed in a hotbed to put forth their first shoots
+previous to the grand operations of potting and dividing them. Of course
+the first object of search in the choicest corner of the nicely labelled
+hoard, was the Phoebus: but no Phoebus was forthcoming; root and label
+had vanished bodily! There was, to be sure, a dahlia without a label,
+which we would gladly have transformed into the missing treasure; but as
+we speedily discovered a label without a dahlia, it was but too obvious
+that they belonged to each other. Until last year we might have had
+plenty of the consolation which results 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 demele 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 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, Copenhagen, the
+charger who carried the Duke at Waterloo, formed so great an object of
+attraction to the visiters of Strathfield-saye.* Then came the house
+itself and then I returned home. Well! this was one beautiful and
+fruitless drive. The ruins of Reading Abbey formed another as fruitless,
+and still more beautiful.
+
+     * Copenhagen--(I had the honour of naming one of Mr.
+     Cooper's dahlias after him--a sort of _bay_ dahlia, if I may
+     be permitted the expression)--Copenhagen was a most
+     interesting horse. He died last year at the age of twenty-
+     seven. He was therefore in his prime on the day of Waterloo,
+     when the duke (then and still a man of iron) rode him for
+     seventeen hours and a half, without dismounting. When his
+     Grace got off, he patted him, and the horse kicked, to the
+     great delight of his brave rider, as it proved that he was
+     not beaten by that tremendous day's work. After his return,
+     this paddock was assigned to him, in which he passed the
+     rest of his life in the most perfect comfort that can be
+     imagined; fed twice a-day, (latterly upon oats broken for
+     him,) with a comfortable stable to retire to, and a rich
+     pasture in which to range. The late amiable duchess used
+     regularly to feed him with bread, and this kindness had
+     given him the habit, (especially after her death,) of
+     approaching every lady with the most confiding familiarity.
+     He had been a fine animal, of middle size and a chestnut
+     colour, but latterly he exhibited an interesting specimen of
+     natural decay, in a state as nearly that of nature as can
+     well be found in a civilised country. He had lost an eye
+     from age, and had become lean and feeble, and, in the manner
+     in which he approached even a casual visiter, there was
+     something of the demand of sympathy, the appeal to human
+     kindness, which one has so often observed from a very old
+     dog towards his master. Poor Copenhagen, who, when alive,
+     furnished so many reliques from his mane and tail to
+     enthusiastic young ladies, who had his hair set in brooches
+     and rings, was, after being interred with military honours,
+     dug up by some miscreant, (never, I believe, discovered,)
+     and one of his hoofs cut off, it is to be presumed, for a
+     memorial, although one that would hardly go in the compass
+     of a ring.  A very fine portrait of Copenhagen has been
+     executed by my young friend Edmund Havell, a youth of
+     seventeen, whose genius as an animal painter, will certainly
+     place him second only to Landseer.
+
+Whether in the "palmy state" of the faith of Rome, the pillared aisles
+of the Abbey church might have vied in grandeur with the avenue at
+Strathfield-saye, I can hardly say; but certainly, as they stand, the
+venerable arched gateway, the rock-like masses of wall, the crumbling
+cloisters, and the exquisite finish of the surbases of the columns and
+other fragments, fresh as if chiselled yesterday, which are re-appearing
+in the excavations now making, there is an interest which leaves
+the grandeur of life, palaces and their pageantry, parks and their
+adornments, all grandeur except the indestructible grandeur of nature,
+at an immeasurable distance. The place was a history. Centuries passed
+before us as we thought of the magnificent monastery, the third in size
+and splendour in England, with its area of thirty acres between the
+walls--and gazed upon it now!
+
+And yet, even now, how beautiful! Trees of every growth mingling with
+those grey ruins, creepers wreathing their fantastic garlands around
+the mouldering arches, gorgeous flowers flourishing in the midst of that
+decay! I almost forgot my search for the dear Phoebus, as I rambled with
+my friend Mr. Malone, the gardener, a man who would in any station be
+remarkable for acuteness and acquirement, amongst the august remains of
+the venerable abbey, with the history of which he was as conversant
+as with his own immediate profession. There was no speaking of smaller
+objects in the presence of the mighty past!
+
+Gradually chilled by so much unsuccess, the ardour of my pursuit
+began to abate. I began to admit the merits of other dahlias of divers
+colours, and actually caught myself committing the inconstancy of
+considering which of the four Princes of Orange I should bespeak for
+next year. Time, in short, was beginning to play his part as the great
+comforter of human afflictions, and the poor Phoebus seemed as likely to
+be forgotten as a last year's bonnet, or a last week's newspaper--when,
+happening to walk with my father to look at a field of his, a pretty bit
+of upland pasture about a mile off, I was struck, in one corner where
+the manure for dressing had been deposited, and a heap of earth and dung
+still remained, to be spread, I suppose, next spring, with some
+tall plant surmounted with bright flowers. Could it be?--was it
+possible?--did my eyes play me false?--No; there it was, upon a
+dunghill--the object of all my researches and lamentations, the
+identical Phoebus! the lost dahlia!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Dahlia, by Mary Russell Mitford
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