Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-01-02
THE OLD HISTORIANS
LOVE FOR HIS RosES-THE ATTRACTIONS OF
HIS WASHINGTON GARDEN.

WASHINGTON, January L. Mr.. Ban.
croft's hobby Is rose-culture. Fancy this
of a man who spends his days in setting
up the dry bones of facts, and breath
ing into them the life of history! His Win.
ter home is double brown-stone, and bad
originally small strip of ground on each
side of the entrance. There was one blaze oil
color from February to June. Such hya.
cinths surely never bloomed outside Of q
poem; and the tulips locked as If some
tropical bird had been plucked near BY, and
its plumage scattered broadcast over the
beds. Every shade and color in natures
paint-box was represented; and under the
wooing sun and soft air of midwinter they
leaves were out or the Spring Prince had
kissed the sleeping world to life; and in the
SHOWS and storms that always follow such q
weather-truce they would stand erect and
glowing and hold their ground until The
green was washed into the hills, and the cat.
tails began to frisk on the trees.
But all of this was emily prelude to his
rosa garden He bought a larga Lot which
joined his property at right angles, facing on
Seventeen street; of course, he paid fancy
price for it, as it was in the heart of the
West End. Straightway he planted it all in
roses.
OuCn uOWerbI
They ranged in color from the palest bloom
of Provence to the passionate heart of the
Jacqueminot; Marechal Neil bends in stately
courtesy to Marie Gillot and signs in per.
fume for the Cloth-of. Gold and the memo
ries of the Malm Alison; Madame Melsh shakes
her petals at the White Coquette, the Altar
rose, the pale Safrona, and the Damaek
Blush; the Mieraflla lifts up its white cups
10 the sun, and Maria Cook faints in the glow
of q sisterheod whose very names L have for
gotten. The garden is like a temple where
thousand spices are burning in flames of as
many colors, and the venerable historian is
the worshiper.
He is an early riser, and many morning
/ have been awakened by cries and com.
ments, incoherent az to words, but ringing
with pleasure. l would go to my window,
and there, bending over rose after rose,
would be the slight elastic figure of their
adorer-his white beard and hair sweeping
the freshness from their chalices and getting
the first perfumes of the young day. He
carried book in one hand and ga three
legged stooP in the other, and spent two or
three hours just wandering from bush to
bush in an ecstacy of content-sometimes
kissing the flowers, sometimes caressing them
with his fingers, and frequently dropping
on his stool under some specially odorous
cluster TO read his book to the accompani-
ment-sound sense and sweet scents.
His house al Newport is surrounded by a
sea OF bloom and fragrance, and he makes
his roses the calendar by which he tells of
his seasons. He stays in Washington until
June and the Jacqueminots die together;
then he flies to his Northern garden, where
he fingers until the hardest of its denizeps
are dead and the ghosts of their petals fall
in snow from the clouds of November. His
house in Washington is stored with interest
lug things, the specially being that there is
one OF everything and that one of the very
best. His hospitality is lavish and elegant,
and his library what Ruskin would call "a
tomb of the kings" In build the historian
is, as have said, slight, his hair and beard
are like cream-colored silk, his dark eyes
tender with the fires of thirty, and his move.
ments are quick and graceful. He rides
every day on fiery black horse, and can
tire cut his young companions in hard
trOt every time