NOT SO MODEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1942, Page 4

NOT SO MODEST

FANCY PRICE FOR VIOLETS IN BRITAIN. Yet another pretension to modesty will have to go by the board now that florists in the West End of London are reported to have been selling violets at a price representing sixpence a bloom. There is not much “shrinking” about that scale of prices, and though long ago Milton did write of jthe “glowing violet” it is only now perhaps that it can be said to glow with that special, if fustian, pride which is attached to expensiveness. Shakespeare carried on the tradition of modesty by writing of “violet dim,” but surely at sixpence each violets will no longer accept such an epithet —rather than 100 candlenower violet! One character of the Victorian era at least must surely turn in his grave at the thought of such flowers being sold at such a. price. This was a famous professional huntsman who, towards the end of the hunting season, was accustomed to express himself with great energy on the subject of “them stinking vi’lets” and their deleterious effect on the kind of scent necessary to his profession. —“Manchester Guardian” Miscellany. j

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