Of course I had known for a long time that Mr. Gilbert was “quite a superior man”--that was the phrase in which the Rural Dean referred to him when recommending me to apply to him for information respecting a recalcitrant orchid which had refused one year to do what it had been doing the year before. He was indeed “quite a superior man,” but being a florist he could never be superior to his business. No man can be superior to a florist, when the florist is an orchidtect as well. I went to Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Gilbert came to me, and all was right. That was long ago. We talked orchids all through that year and then, by way of lightening our theme, we began to talk of roses and such like frivolities, but everything he said was said in perfect taste. Though naturally, living his life on terms of absolute intimacy with orchids, he could not regard roses seriously, yet I never heard him say a disrespectful word about them: he gave me to understand that he regarded the majority of rosarians as quite harmless--they had their hobby, and why should they not indulge in it, he asked. “After all, rosarians are God's creatures like the rest of us,” he said, with a tolerant smile. And I must confess that, for all my knowledge of his being a superior man, he startled me a little by adding,-- “The orchid is epic and the rose lyric, sir; but every one knows how an incidental lyric lightens up the hundred pages of an epic. Oh, yes, roses have their place in a properly organised horticultural scheme.” “I believe you are right, now that I come to look at the matter in that light,” said I. “You find a relaxation in reading poetry?” I added. “I have made a point of reading some verses every night for the past twenty-five years, sir,” he replied. “I find that's the only way by which I can keep myself up to the mark.” “I can quite understand that,” said I. “Flowers are the lyrics that, as you say, lighten the great epic of Creation. Where would our poets be without their flowers?” “They make their first appeal to the poet, sir; but the worst of it is that every one who can string together a few lines about a flower believes himself to be a poet. No class of men have treated flowers worse than our poets even the best of them are so vague in their references to flowers as to irritate me.” “In what way, Mr. Gilbert?”