ECCENTRICITIES OF HUE.
There is a story of a literary critic who during a discussion on Thomas Hardy's poems said : "I like my poetry good, and if I can't get it good I like it rum ; and Hardy is rum." Those who like their flowers "rum" as well as good could scarcely achieve more in queer and unusual colour than some of the Barr tulips. 1 saw the other day side by side bowls of Tulips noire, Louis XIV, and Prince of Orange. The dark and yet strangely vivid browns were hardly less wonderful than the Black Tulip, that marvel sought at one period as eagerly as the philosopher's stone. It cannot be said to be jet black ; but the older it grows the blacker it grows, and by the time when one ought to empty the bowl or cut the stem the tulip is almost as black as you can imagine a flower to be.
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