CHAPTER XX
THE FAMILY LIFE
“The Family Life is romantic because it is uncertain. Every member of it likes different work and different play. These differences make the household bracing. Those who want to get out of family life will go into a much narrower world.”
Our home at this time was in the pretty row of flats opposite the Dominican Church on Lexington Avenue. They were light, sunny apartments and had a satisfactory share of what we call, modern conveniences. Every one knows how New York looks now, between Lexington Avenue and the old entrance to Central Park at the Arsenal. Then, it was a clear, open space. I remember just one cottage standing at the southeast corner opposite to the park entrance; and I remember this cottage, because its garden was full of old-fashioned English flowers—columbines, sops-in-wine, calamuth, kingspear, crown imperials, Michaelmas daisies, and the only auriculas I have seen in America, the aristocrat of the primrose family, dressed in royal purple, and powdered as daintily as any court lady.
AURICULAS
“Grave grandees from pageant olden,
Purple, crimson, primrose, golden,
Yellow-hearted, tawny-tuckered,
Velvet-robed, and flounced and puckered,
Golden-eyed and garnet-breasted,