“Pale cowslip, fit for maiden’s early bier,”
not the faint Primula but emphatically the Lilac—the Syringa Vulgaris; the joyous fleur des humbles, as contrasted to the noble Rose.
“Oh, gai! vive la rose,
La rose ... et les lilas!”
runs the refrain of olden days.
During the last century or two it has grown as common, almost, around villages as the hawthorn, the Aubépine itself. But it is perhaps best appreciated in the towns. While the tender purple bloom lasts, there is scarce too modest a working home’s window-sill or mantelpiece for the display of a branche de Lilas stuck in the gullet of a water-bottle. And your gay-hearted grisette or midinette, early afoot in the streets, will always spend her first sou of the day on a sprig of the sweet-breathing rosy cluster.
LAYLOCKS—LILAS BLANC
One may learn, whilst intent upon other matters, many unsuspected things about objects even as familiar as the common “Laylock.” ‹A collection of old letters of Georgian and very early Victorian days, with which we have had much to do at one time, show a preference for this phonetic rendering of the name.› Thus it appears that a valuable febrifuge “principle” is obtainable from its fruit; that its wood, veined in pleasing colours and very fine-grained, is in high request for delicate articles of turnery and in particular for inlaying; that a perfumed essence is sometimes distilled from it that is almost indistinguishable from Rhodes Balsam—and so forth.
Those, however, are not the points of interest which have made it imperative to have a plant or two of “Laylocks” in our Sentimental Garden. ‹They do fairly well, be it said, in their own specially sheltered, suntrap corner of the ground.› No, there is in life an ever-growing motive—old sake’s sake. Syringa Persica may mean much to the operative gardener, but it can never mean Lilas blanc ... Lilas rose!