“Long stalks, please.”  Who, being commanded by his lady to bring in flowers for the house, has not received this warning?  And was there ever a stalk to equal the daffodil’s for length and firmness and beauty?  Other flowers must have foliage to set them off, but daffodils can stand by themselves in a bowl, and their green and yellow dress brings all spring into the room.  A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or no the sun be shining outside.  Daffodils in a green bowl—­and let it snow if it will.

Wordsworth wrote a poem about daffodils.  He wrote poems about most flowers.  If a plant would be unique it must be one which had never inspired him to song.  But he did not write about daffodils in a bowl.  The daffodils which I celebrate are stationary; Wordsworth’s lived on the banks of Ullswater, and fluttered and tossed their heads and danced in the breeze.  He hints that in their company even he might have been jocose—­a terrifying thought, which makes me happier to have mine safely indoors.  When he first saw them there (so he says) he gazed and gazed and little thought what wealth the show to him had brought.  Strictly speaking, it hadn’t brought him in anything at the moment, but he must have known from his previous experiences with the daisy and the celandine that it was good for a certain amount.

   A simple daffodil to him
   Was so much matter for a slim
   Volume at two and four.

You may say, of course, that I am in no better case, but then I have never reproached other people (as he did) for thinking of a primrose merely as a primrose.

But whether you prefer them my way or Wordsworth’s—­indoors or outdoors—­will make no difference in this further matter to which finally I call your attention.  Was there ever a more beautiful name in the world than daffodil?  Say it over to yourself, and then say “agapanthus” or “chrysanthemum,” or anything else you please, and tell me if the daffodils do not have it.

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, Let them live upon their praises; Long as there’s a sun that sets, Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are violets They will have a place in story; But for flowers my bowls to fill, Give me just the daffodil.

As Wordsworth ought to have said.

A Household Book

Once on a time I discovered Samuel Butler; not the other two, but the one who wrote The Way of All Flesh, the second-best novel in the English language.  I say the second-best, so that, if you remind me of Tom Jones or The Mayor of Casterbridge or any other that you fancy, I can say that, of course, that one is the best.  Well, I discovered him, just as Voltaire discovered Habakkuk, or your little boy discovered Shakespeare the other day, and I committed my discovery to the world in two glowing articles.  Not unnaturally the world remained unmoved.  It knew all about Samuel Butler.