garish world as a rose or as a chrysanthemum? Is her life set to the note
of display, of color and show, with little sweetness, or to that retiring
modesty which needs a little encouragement before it fully reveals its
beauty and its perfume? If one were to pass his life in moving in a
palace car from one plush hotel to another, a bunch of chrysanthemums in
his hand would seem to be a good symbol of his life. There are aged
people who can remember that they used to choose various roses, as to
their color, odor, and degree of unfolding, to express the delicate
shades of advancing passion and of devotion. What can one do with this
new favorite? Is not a bunch of chrysanthemums a sort of
take-it-or-leave-it declaration, boldly and showily made, an offer
without discrimination, a tender without romance? A young man will catch
the whole family with this flaming message, but where is that sentiment
that once set the maiden heart in a flutter? Will she press a
chrysanthemum, and keep it till the faint perfume reminds her of the
sweetest moment of her life?

Are we exaggerating this astonishing rise, development, and spread of the
chrysanthemum? As a fashion it is not so extraordinary as the hoop-skirt,
or as the neck ruff, which is again rising as a background to the lovely
head. But the remarkable thing about it is that heretofore in all nations
and times, and in all changes of fashion in dress, the rose has held its
own as the queen of flowers and as the finest expression of sentiment.
But here comes a flaunting thing with no desirable perfume, looking as if
it were cut with scissors out of tissue-paper, but capable of taking
infinite varieties of color, and growing as big as a curtain tassel, that
literally captures the world, and spreads all over the globe, like the
Canada thistle. The florists have no eye for anything else, and the
biggest floral prizes are awarded for the production of its
eccentricities. Is the rage for this flower typical of this fast and