THOSE CHARMING PEOPLE

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20691, 29 December 1938, Page 4

THOSE CHARMING PEOPLE

LOVERS OF FLOWERS The woman of charm and poise has long been envied by her less interesting sister (says a writer in the Farmer and Dairyman). lifer ease in any situation, her pleasant grace and attractive bearing, appear to set her off as a being apart. Some people grow discontented because they lack these graces, and struggle vainly to imitate that which i.iiey cannot acquire. But why feel like that about it? Everyone of us has an individuality of =,ome kind, and every individuality is interesting. If you desire to cultivate something, cultivate your own self. Make up your mind to interest yourself in those things you have always loved. Flowers, perhaps. If you love flowers set aside a morning a week for pottering around in the garden. Do only the essential work of the house for the day, and spend the rest of it with your hands in the good earth, weeding, pruning and digging. It is remarkable the poise and charm the love of flowers can give a person. I know a woman, one of the most delightful of my acquaintances, who, lacking even a primary school education, can interest me as no “educated” person can. The love of flowers has raised many a man or woman out of the rut and bred within them the pure-hearted pleasure of content. Darden lovers are many things but they are seldom badtempered. It is impossible to analyse the cause; we have time to deal with effects alone. But there is in truth a patience found in those who spend their time among helpless, growing things, which is found nowhere else. Even when you feel cross with all and sundry, and ready to scratch the eyes out of the first person you meet, an hour spent among the flowers will see your irritation disappear. Many people are ready to gush over 110-wens. To declare loudly how beautiful they look upon the diningroom table carefully arranged in a bowl, but all too few are they who know the way they grow. The people who do are the charming people. Especially is this true of women, because the homely woman of grace and unconscious charm is, nine times out of ten, the one who loves her garden.

There is a story somewhere about the treasure hidden in the field. How the two sons dug for it, and for all their digging found not a spot of gold —only mile upon mile of waving wheat. It is the same with flowers—they are treasure enough in themselves. Just to see them dancing gaily among the garden beds, just to pluck them to decorate the house, seems treasure enough, but there is a deeper treasure even than that—the treasure of charm and content.

A word in season. Don’t go dashing off now, with a trowel in your hand and some seedlings in your apron pocket, to start a garden. These gifts are not for sale. As an old gardener once said to me, his eye upon a gem of a flower struggling to grow in a carefully shaded corner, “The best plants grow slowly.”