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diff --git a/old/51940-0.txt b/old/51940-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3796726..0000000 --- a/old/51940-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8132 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Garden of Peace, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: A Garden of Peace - A Medley in Quietude - -Author: Frank Frankfort Moore - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51940] -Last Updated: March 13, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GARDEN OF PEACE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -A GARDEN OF PEACE - -A Medley In Quietude - -By F. Frankfort Moore - -Author of “The Jessamy Bride,” Etc - -With Illustrations - -New York: George H. Doran Company - -1920 - -[Illustration: 0001] - -[Illustration: 0008] - -[Illustration: 0009] - - - -TO - -DOROTHY - -ROSAMUND, FRANCIE, OLIVE, MARJORIE, URSULA - -A GARDEN OF PEACE - - - - -CHAPTER THE FIRST - -Dorothy frowns slightly, but slightingly, at the title; but when -challenged to put her frown into words she has nothing worse to say -about it than that it has a certain catchpenny click--the world is -talking about The Peace and she has an impression that to introduce -the word even without the very definite article is an attempt to derive -profit from a topic of the hour--something like backing a horse with a -trusty friend for a race which you have secret information it has won -five minutes earlier--a method of amassing wealth resorted to every day, -I am told by some one who has tried it more than once, but always just -five minutes too late. - -I don't like Dorothy's rooted objection to my literary schemes, because -I know it to be so confoundedly well rooted; so I argue with her, -assuring her that literary men of the highest rank have never shown any -marked reluctance to catch the pennies that are thrown to them by the -public when they hit upon a title that jingles with the jingle of the -hour. To descend to an abject pleasantry I tell her that a taking title -is not always the same as a take-in title; but, for my part, even if it -were---- - -And then I recall how the late R. D. Blackmore (whose works, by the way, -1 saw in a bookseller's at Twickenham with a notice over them--“by a -local author”) accounted for the popularity of _Lorna Doone_: people -bought it believing that it had something to do with the extremely -popular engagement--“a Real German Defeat,” Tenniel called it in his -_Punch_ cartoon--of the Marquis of Lorne and the Princess Louise. And -yet so far from feeling any remorse at arriving at the Temple of Fame -by the tradesman's entrance, he tried to get upon the same track again -a little later, calling his new novel _Alice Lorraine_: people were -talking a lot about Alsace-Lorraine at the time, as they have been doing -ever since, though never quite so loudly as at the present moment (I -trust that the publishers of the novel are hurrying on with that new -edition). - -But Dorothy's reply comes pat: If Mr. Blackmore did that, all she can -say is that she doesn't think any the better of him for it; just what -the Sabbatarian Scotswoman said when the act of Christ in plucking the -ears of corn on the Sabbath Day was brought under her ken. - -“My dear,” I cry, “you shouldn't say that about Mr. Blackmore: you seem -to forget that his second name was Doddridge, and I think he was fully -justified in refusing to change the attractive name of his heroine of -the South Downs because it happened to catch the ears (and the pence) -of people interested in the French provinces which were pinched by the -Germans, who added insult to injury by transforming Alsace-Lorraine to -Elsass-Lothringen. And so far as my own conscience is concerned----” - -“Your own what?” cried Dorothy. - -“My own conscience--_literary_ conscience, of course.” - -“Oh, that one? Well?” - -“I say, that so far as--as--as I am concerned, I would not have shrunk -from calling a book _A Garden in Tipperary_ if I had written it a few -years ago when all England and a third of France were ringing with the -name Tipperary. - -“Only then it would have been a Garden of War, but now it suits -you--your fancy, to make it a Garden of Peace.” - -“It's not too late yet; if you go on like this, I think I could manage -to introduce a note of warfare into it and to make people see the -appropriateness of it as well; so don't provoke me.” - -“I will not,” said Dorothy, with one of her perplexing smiles. - -And then she became interesting; for she was ready to affirm that every -garden is a battlefield, even when it is not run by a husband and his -wife--a dual system which led to the most notorious horticultural fiasco -on record. War, according to Milton, originated in heaven, but it has -been carried on with great energy ever since on earth, and the first -garden of which there is a literary record maintained the heavenly -tradition. So does the last, which has brought forth fruit and flowers -in abundance through the slaughter of slugs, the crushing of snails, the -immolation of leather-jackets, the annihilation of 'earwigs, and is now -to be alluded to as a Garden of Peace, if you please. - -Dorothy con be very provoking when she pleases and is wearing the right -sort of dress; and when she has done proving that the most ancient -tradition of a garden points to a dispute not yet settled, between the -man and his wife who were running it, she begins to talk about the awful -scenes that have taken place in gardens. We have been together in a -number of gardens in various parts of the world: from those of the -Borgias, where, in the cool of the evening, Lucrezia and her relations -communed on the strides that the science and art of toxicology was -making, on to the little Trianon where the diamond necklace sparkled in -the moonlight on the eve of the rising of the people against such folk -as Queens and Cardinals--on to the gardens of the Temple, where the -roses were plucked before the worst of the Civil Wars of England -devastated the country--on to Cherry' Orchard, near Kingston in the -island of Jamaica, where the half-breed Gordon concocted his patriotic -treason which would have meant the letting loose of a jungle of savages -upon a community of civilisation, and was only stamped out by the firm -foot of the white man on whose shoulders the white man's burden was -laid, and who snatched his fellow-countrymen from massacre at the -sacrifice of his own career; for party government, which has been the -curse of England, was not to be defrauded of its prey because Governor -Eyre had saved a colony from annihilation. These are only a few of the -gardens in which we have stood together, and Dorothy's memory for their -associations is really disconcerting. I am disconcerted; but I wait, for -the wisdom of the serpent of the Garden comes to me at times--I wait, -and when I have the chance of that edgeways word which sometimes I can't -get in, I say,-- - -“Oh, yes, those were pleasant days in Italy among the cypresses and -myrtles, and in Jamaica with its palms. I think we must soon have -another ramble together.” - -“If it weren't for those children--but where should we go?” she cried. - -“I'm not sure,” I said, as if revolving many memories, “but I think some -part of the Pacific Slope----” - -“Gracious, why the Pacific Slope, my man?” - -“Because a Pacific Garden must surely be a Garden of Peace; and that's -where we are going now with the title-page of a book that is to -catch the pennies of the public, and resemble as nearly as I can make -it--consistent with my natural propensity to quarrel with things that do -not matter in the least--one of the shadiest of the slopes of the Island -Valley of Avilion-- - - Where falls not hall, or rain, or any snow, - - Nor ever wind blows loudly, for it lies - - Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns - - And bowery hollows, crown'd with summer sea.” - -Luckily I recollected the quotation, for I had not been letter-perfect I -should have had a poor chance of a bright future with Dorothy. - -As it was, however, she only felt if the big tomato was as ripe as it -seemed, and said,-- - -“'Orchard-lawns.' H'm, I wonder if Tennyson, with all his -'careful-robin' observation of the little things of Nature was aware -that you should never let grass grow in an apple orchard.” - -“I wonder, indeed,” I said, with what I considered a graceful -acquiescence. “But at the same time I think I should tell you that there -are no little things in Nature.” - -“I suppose there are not,” said she. “Anyhow, you will have the biggest -tomato in Nature in your salad with the cold lamb. Is that the bell?” - -“It is the ghost-tinkle of the bell of the bell-wedder who was the -father of the lamb,” said I poetically. - -“So long as you do not mention the mother of the lamb when you come to -the underdone stratum, I shall be satisfied,” said she. - -PS.--(1.30)--And I didn't. - -PFS.--(1.35)--But I might have. - - - - -CHAPTER THE SECOND - -This town of ours is none other than Yardley Parva. Every one is -supposed to know that the name means “The Little Sheltered Garden,” and -that it was given this name by a mixed commission of Normans and Romans. -The Normans, who spoke a sort of French, gave it the first syllable, -which is the root of what became _jardin_, and which still survives in -the “backyard” of American literature; meaning not the backyard of an -English home, where broken china and glass and other incidental rubbish -are thrown to work their way into the bowels of the earth, but a place -of flowers and beans and pumpkins. The surname, Parva, represents the -influence of the Romans, who spoke a sort of Latin. Philologists are not -wholehearted about the “ley,” but the general impression is that it had -a narrow escape from being “leigh,” an open meadow; ley, however, -is simply “lee,” or a sheltered quarter, the opposite to “windward.” - Whatever foundation there may be for this philology--whether it is -derived from _post hoc_ evidence or not--every one who knows the place -intimately will admit that if it is not literally exact, it should -be made so by the Town Council; for it is a town of sheltered little -gardens. It has its High Street: and this name, a really industrious -philologist will tell you, is derived, not from its occupying any -elevated position, but from the fact that the people living on either -side were accustomed to converse across the street, and any one wishing -to chat with an opposite neighbour, tried to attract his attention with -the usual hail of “hie there!”; and as there was much crossquestioning -and answering, there was a constant chorus of “hie, hie!” so that it was -really the gibe of strangers that gave it its name, only some fool of a -purist seven or eight hundred years ago acquired the absurd notion that -the word was “High” instead of “Hie!” So it was that Minnesingers' Lane -drifted into Mincing Lane, I have been told. It had really nothing to do -with the Min Sing district of China, where the tea sold in that street -of tea-brokers came from. Philology is a wonderful study; and no one -who has made any progress in its by-paths should ever be taken aback or -forced to look silly. - -The houses on each side of the High Street are many of them just as they -were four or five hundred years ago. Some of them are shops with bow -fronts that were once the windows of parlours in the days when -honest householders drank small ale for breakfast and the industrious -apprentices took down the shutters from their masters' shops and began -their day's work somewhere about five o'clock in midsummer, graduating -to seven in midwinter. There are now some noble plate-glass fronts -to the shops, but there are no apprentices, and certainly no masters. -Scores of old, red-tiled roofs remain, but they are no more red than -the red man of America is red. The roofs and the red man are of the same -hue. Sixty years ago, when slate roofs became popular, they found their -way to Yardley Parva, and were reckoned a guarantee of a certain social -standing. If you saw a slate roof and a cemented brick front you might -be sure that there was a gig in the stable at the back. You can now tell -what houses had once been tiled by the pitch of the roofs. This was not -altered on the introduction of the slates. - -But with the innovations of plate-glass shop-fronts and slate roofs -there has happily been no change in the gardens at the back of the two -rows of the houses of the High Street. Almost every house has still -its garden, and they remain gay with what were called in my young days -“old-fashioned flowers,” through the summer, and the pear-trees that -sprawl across the high dividing walls in Laocoon writhings--the quinces -that point derisive, gnarled fingers at the old crabs that give way to -soundless snarls against the trained branches of the Orange Pippins--the -mulberries that are isolated on a patch of grass--all are to-day what -they were meant to be when they were planted in the chalk which may have -supplied Roman children with marbles when they had civilized themselves -beyond the knuckle-bones of their ancestors' games. - -I cannot imagine that much about these gardens has changed during -the changes of a thousand years, except perhaps their shape. When the -Anglo-Saxon epidemic of church-building was running its course, the -three-quarters-of-a-mile of the High Street did not escape. There was a -church every hundred yards or so, and some of them were spacious enough -to hold a congregation of fifty or sixty; and every church had its -church-yard--that is, as we have seen--its garden, equal to the -emergencies of a death-rate of perhaps two every five years; but when -the churches became dwelling-houses, as several did, the church-yard -became the back-yard in the American sense: fruit-trees were planted, -and beneath their boughs the burgesses discussed the merits of ale -and the passing away of the mead bowl, and shook their heads when some -simpleton suggested that the arrow that killed Rufus a few months before -was an accidental one. There are those gardens to-day, and the burgesses -smoke their pipes over the six-thirty edition of the evening paper that -left London at five-fifteen, and listen to stories of Dick, who lost a -foot at the ford of the Somme, or of Tom, who got the M.C. after Mons, -and went through the four years without a scratch, or of Bob, who had -his own opinion about the taking of Jerusalem, outside which two fingers -of his left hand are still lying, unless a thieving Arab appropriated -them. - -There the chat goes on from century to century on the self-same -subject--War, war, war. It is certain that men left Yardley Parva for -the First Crusade; one of the streets that ran from the Roman road to -the Abbey which was founded by a Crusading Norman Earl, returns the name -that was given to it to commemorate the capture of Antioch when the news -reached England a year or so after the event; and it is equally certain -that Yardley men were at Bosworth Field, and Yardley men at Tournai in -1709 as well as in 1918--at the Nile in 1798 as well as in 1915; and it -is equally certain that such of them as came back talked of what they -had seen and of what their comrades had done. The tears that the mothers -proudly shed when they talked of those who had not come home in 1918 -were shed where the mothers of the Crusaders of 1099 had knelt to pray -for the repose of the souls of their dear ones whose bones were picked -by the jackals of the Lebanon. On the site of one of the churches of -the market-place there is now built a hall of moving pictures--Moving -Pictures--that is the whole sum of the bustle of the thousand -years--Moving Pictures. The same old story. Life has not even got the -instinct of the film-maker: it does not take the trouble to change the -scenes of the exploits of a thousand--ten thousand--years ago, and those -of to-day. Egypt, the Nile, Gaza, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mesopotamia. -Moving pictures--walking shadows--walking about for a while but all -having the one goal--the Garden of Peace; those gardens that surrounded -the churches, where now the apple-trees bloom and fruit and shed their -leaves. - -These little irregular back-gardens are places of enchantment to me and -I think I like those behind the smallest of the shops, which are not -more than thirty feet square, rather than those higher up the town, of a -full acre or two. These bigger ones do not suggest a history beyond the -memory of the gardeners who trim the hedges and cut the grass with a -machine. The small and irregular ones suggest a good deal more than -a maiden lady wearing gloves, with a basket on her arm and a pair of -snipping shears opening its jaws to bite the head off every bloom that -has a touch of brown on its edge. But with me it is not a matter of -liking and not liking; it is a matter of liking and liking better--it is -the artisan's opinion of rival beers (pre-war): all good but some better -than others. The little gardens behind the shops are lyrics; the big -ones behind the villas are excellent prose, and excellent prose is -frequently quite as prosy as excellent verse. They are alive but they -are not full of the joy of living. The flowers that they bring forth -suggest nice girls whose education is being carefully attended to by -gentlemen who are preparing for Ordination. Those flowers do not sing, -and I know perfectly well that if they were made to sing it would be to -the accompaniment of a harmonium, and they would always sing in tune and -in time: but they would need a conductor, they would never try anything -on their own--not even when it was dark and no one would know anything -about it. Somehow these borders make me think of the children of -Blundell's Charity---a local Fund which provides for the education on -religious principles of fifteen children born in wedlock of respectable -parents. They occupy a special bench in the aisle of one of the -churches, and wear a distinctive dress with white collars and cuffs. -They attend to the variations of the Sacred Service, and are always as -tidy and uninteresting as the borders in the wide gardens behind the -houses that are a quarter of a mile beyond the gardens of the High -Street shops. - -But it is in these wide gardens that the earliest strawberries are -grown, and to them the reporter of the local newspaper goes in search -of the gigantic gooseberry or the potato weighing four pounds and three -ounces; and that is what the good ladies with the abhorred shears and -the baskets--the Atropussiies, in whose hands lie the fates of the -fruits as well as of the flowers--consider the sum of high gardening: -the growth of the abnormal is their aim and they are as proud of their -achievement as the townsman who took to poultry was of his when he -exhibited a bantam weighing six pounds. - -Now I hold that gardens are like nurseries--nurseries of children, I -mean--and that all make an appeal to one's better nature, that none can -be visited without a sense of pleasure even though it may be no more -than is due to the anticipation of getting away from them; therefore, I -would not say a word against the types which I venture to describe; as -I have found them. The worst that I can say of them is that they are -easily described, and the garden or the girl that can be described will -never be near my heart. Those gardens are not the sort that I should -think of marrying, though I can live on the friendliest of terms with -them, particularly in the strawberry season. They do not appeal to -the imagination as do the small and irregular ones at the rear of the -grocer's, the stationer's, the fishmonger's, the bootmaker's, or the -chymist's--in this connection I must spell the name of the shop with -a y: the man who sits in such a garden is a chymist, not a chemist. I -could not imagine a mere chemist sniffing the rosemary and the tansy and -the rue _au naturel_: the mere chemist puts his hand into a drawer and -weighs you out an ounce of the desiccated herbs. - -In one of Mr. Thomas Hardy's earlier novels--I think it is _The Mayor of -Casterbridge_--he describes a town, which is very nearly as delightfully -drowsy as our Yardley Parva, as one through which the bees pass in -summer from the gardens at one side to those at the other. In our town -I feel sure that the bees that enter among the small gardens of sweet -scents and savours at one end of the High Street, never reach the -gardens of the gigantic gooseberry at the other; unless they make a -bee-line for them at the moment of entering; for they must find their -time fully occupied among the snapdragons of the old walls, the flowers -of the veronica bushes, and the buttons of the tall hollyhocks growing -where they please. - -When I made, some years ago, a tour of Wessex, I went to Casterbridge on -a July day, and the first person I met in the street was an immense -bee, and I watched him hum away into the distance just as Mr. Hardy had -described him. He seemed to be boasting that he was Mr. Hardy's bee, -just as a Presbyterian Minister, who had paid a visit to the Holy Land -to verify his quotations, boasted of the reference made to himself in -another Book. - -“My dear friends,” said he, “I read in the Sacred Book the prophecy -that the land should be in heaps; I looked up from the page, and there, -before my very eyes, lay the heaps. I read that the bittern should cry -there; I looked up, and lo! close at hand stood the bittern. I read that -the Minister of the Lord should mourn there: _I was that Minister_.” - -[Illustration: 0031] - -But there are two or three gardens--now that I come to think of it there -are not so many as three--governed by the houses of the “better-class -people” (so they were described to me when I first came to Yardley -Parva), which are everything that a garden should he. Their trees have -not been cut down as they used to be forty years ago, to allow the -flowers to have undisputed possession. In each there are groups of -sycamore, elm, and silver birch, and their position makes one feel that -one is on the border of a woodland through which one might wander -for hours. There are tulip-trees, and a fine arbutus on an irregular, -slightly-sloping lawn, and a couple of enormous drooping ashes--twenty -people can sit in the green shade of either. In graceful groups there -are laburnums and lilacs. Farther down the slope is a well-conceived -arrangement of flower-beds cut out of the grass. Nearly everything in -the second of these gardens is herbaceous; but its roses are invariably -superb, and its lawn with a small lily pond beside it, is ideal. The -specimen shrubs on a lower lawn are perfect as regards both form and -flower, and while one is aware of the repose that is due to a thoughtful -scheme of colour, one is conscious only of the effect, never being -compelled to make use of the word artistic. As soon as people begin -to talk of a garden being artistic you know that it has failed in its -purpose, just as a portrait-painter has failed if you are impressed with -the artistic side of what he has done. The garden is not to illustrate -the gardener's art any more than the portrait is to make manifest the -painter's. The garden should be full of art, but so artfully introduced -that you do not know that it is there. I have heard a man say as if he -had just made a unique discovery,-- - -“How extraordinary it is that the arrangements of colour in Nature are -always harmonious!” - -Extraordinary! - -Equally extraordinary it is that - - “Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? - - For if it prospers none dare call it treason.” - -All our impressions of harmony in colour are derived from Nature's -arrangements of colour, and when there is no longer harmony there is no -longer Nature. Is it marvellous that Nature should be harmonious when -all our ideas of harmony are acquired from Nature? A book might be -written on this text--I am not sure that several books have not been -written on it. It is the foundation of the analysis of what may be -called without cant, “artistic impression.” It is because it is so trite -that I touch upon it in my survey of a Garden of Peace. We love the -green of the woodland because it still conveys to us the picture of our -happy home of some hundreds of thousands of years ago. We find beauty in -an oval outline because our ancestors of the woodland spent some happy -hours bird-nesting. Hogarth's line of beauty is beautiful because it -is the line of human life--the line that Nature has ever before her -eyes--the line of human love. The colours of countless fruits are a -delight to us because we have associated those colours for tens of -thousands of years with the delight of eating those fruits, and taking -pleasure in the tints of the fruits; we take pleasure in the tints of -flowers because they suggest the joys of the fruits. The impression of -awe and fear that one of Salvator Rosa's “Rocky Landscapes” engenders -is due to our very distant ancestors' experience of the frequent -earthquakes that caused these mighty rocks to be flung about when the -surface of our old mother Earth was not so cool as it is to-day, as -well as to the recollection of the very, fearsome moments of a much less -remote ancestor spent in evading his carnivorous enemies who had their -dens among these awful rocks. From a comparatively recent pastoral -parent we have inherited our love for the lawn. There were the sheep -feeding in quiet on the grass of the oasis in the days when man had made -the discovery that he could tame certain animals and keep them to eat at -his leisure instead of having to spend hours hunting them down. - -But so deep an impression have the thousands of years of hunting made -upon the race, that even among the most highly civilised people hunting -is the most popular of all enjoyments, and the hunter is a hero while -the shepherd is looked on as a poor sort. - -Yes, there are harmonies in Nature, though all makers of gardens do not -appreciate them; the discordant notes that occasionally assail a lover -of Nature in a garden that has been made by a nurseryman are due to the -untiring exertions of the hybridiser. It is quite possible to produce -“freaks” and “sports” both as regards form and colour--“Prodigious -mixtures and confusion strange.” I believe that some professional men -spend all their time over experiments in this direction, and I have no -doubt that some of them, having perpetrated a “novelty,” make money out -of it. Equally sure I am that the more conscientious, when they bit upon -a novelty that they feel to be offensive, destroy the product without -exhibiting it. They have not all the hideous unscrupulousness of Dr. -Moreau--the nearest approach to a devil trying to copy the Creator -who made man in His own image. Dr. Moreau made things after his own -likeness. He was a great hybridiser. (Mr. H. G. Wells, after painting -that Devil for us, has recently been showing his skill in depicting the -God.) - -Now, every one knows that the garden of to-day owes most of its glory to -the judicious hybridiser, but I implore of him to be merciful as he is -strong. I have seen some heartrending results of his experiments which -have not been suppressed, as they should have been. I am told that a -great deal in the way of developing the natural colours of a certain -group of flowers can be done by the introduction of chemicals into their -drinking water. It is like poisoning a well! By such means I believe -an unscrupulous gardener could turn a whole border into something -resembling a gigantic advertisement card of aniline dyes. - -But I must be careful in my condemnations of such possibilities. There -is a young woman named Rosamund, who is Dorothy's first-born, and she -is ready at all seasonable times to give me the benefit of her fourteen -years' experiences of the world and its ways, and she has her own views -of Nature as the mother of the Arts. After listening to my old-fashioned -railings against such chromatic innovations as I have abused, she -maintained a thoughtful silence that suggested an absence of conviction. - -“Don't you see the awfulness of re-dying a flower--the unnaturalness of -such an operation?” I cried. - -“Why, you old thing, can't you see that if it's done by aniline dyes -it's all right--true to Nature and all that?” - -“Good heavens! that a child of mine--Dorothy, did you hear her? How can -you sit there and smile as if nothing had happened? Have you brought her -up as an atheist or what?” - -“Every one who doesn't agree with all you say isn't a confirmed -atheist,” replied Dorothy calmly. “As for Rosamund, what I'm afraid of -is that, so far from being an atheist, she is rather too much in the -other direction--like 'Lo, the poor Indian.' She'll explain what's in -her mind if you give her a chance What do you mean, my dear, by laying -the emphasis on aniline dyes? Don't you know that most of them are -awful?” - -“Of course I do, darling,” said Rosamund. “But I've been reading about -them, and so--well, you see, they come from coal tar, and coal is a bit -of a tree that grew up and fell down thousands of years ago, and its -burning is nothing more than its giving back the sunshine that it--what -is the word that the book used?--oh, I remember--the sunshine that -it hoarded when it was part of the forest. Now, I think that if it's -natural for flowers to be coloured by the sunshine it doesn't matter -whether it's the sunshine of to-day or the sunshine of fifty thousand -years ago; it comes from the sun all the same, and as aniline dyes are -the sunshine of long ago it's no harm to have them to colour flowers -now.” - -“Daddy was only complaining of the horrid ones, my dear,” said the -Mother, without looking at me. “Isn't that what you meant?” she added, -and now she looked at me, and though I was suspicious that she was -smiling under her skin, I could not detect the slightest symptom of a -smile in her voice. - -“Of course I meant the hideous ones--magenta and that other sort of -purple thing. I usually make my meaning plain,” said I, with a modified -bluster. - -“Oh,” remarked Rosamund, in a tone that suggested a polite negation of -acquiescence. - -There was another little silence before I said,--“Anyhow, it was those -German brutes who developed those aniline things.” - -“Oh, yes; they could do anything they pleased with _coal_ tar,” said -Dorothy. “But the other sort could do anything he pleased with the -Germans--and he did.” - -“The other sort?” said I inquiringly. - -“Yes, the other sort--the true British product--the _Jack Tar_,” said -Dorothy; and Rosamund, who has a friend who is a midshipman in the Royal -Navy, clapped her hands and laughed. - -It is at such moments as this that I feel I am not master in my own -house. Time was when I believed that my supremacy was as unassailable as -that of the Lord High Admiral; but since those girls have been growing -up I have come to realise that I have been as completely abolished as -the Lord High Admiral--once absolute, but now obsolete--and that the -duties of office are discharged by a commission. The Board of Admiralty -is officially the Lords Commissioners for discharging the office of Lord -High Admiral. - -I hope that this _ménage_ will be maintained. The man who tries to -impose his opinions upon a household because he is allowed to pay all -the expenses, is--anyhow, he is not me. - - - - -CHAPTER THE THIRD - -I believe I interrupted myself in the midst of a visit to one of the -gardens of the “better-class people” who live in the purely residential -end of the High Street. These are the people whose fathers and -grandfathers lived in the same houses and took a prominent part in -preparing the beacons which were to spread far and wide the news that -Bonaparte had succeeded in landing on their coast with that marvellous -flotilla of his. And from these very gardens more than two hundred and -fifty years earlier the still greater grandfathers had seen the blazing -beacons that sent the news flying northward that the Invincible Armada -of Spain was plunging and rolling up the Channel, which can be faintly -seen by the eye of faith from the tower of the Church of St. Mary -sub-Castro, at the highest part of the High Street. The Invincible -Armada! If I should ever organise an aggressive enterprise, I certainly -would not call it “Invincible.” It is a name of ill omen. I cannot for -the life of me remember where I read the story of the monarch who was -reviewing the troops that he had equipped very splendidly to go against -the Romans. When his thousand horsemen went glittering by with polished -steel cuirasses and plumed helmets--they must have been the Household -Cavalry of the period--his heart was lifted up in pride, and he called -out tauntingly to his Grand Vizier, who was a bit of a cynic,-- - -“Ha, my friend, don't you think that these will be enough for the -Romans?” - -“Sure,” was the reply. “Oh, yes, they will be enough, avariciuus though -the Romans undoubtedly are.” - -This was the first of the Invincible enterprises. The next time I saw -the word in history was in association with the Spanish Armada, and -to-day, over a door in my house, I have hung the carved ebony ornament -that belonged to a bedstead of one of the ships that went ashore at -Spanish Point on the Irish coast. Later still, there was a gang of -murderers who called themselves “Invincibles,” and I saw the lot of them -crowded into a police-court dock whence they filed out to their doom. -And what about the last of these ruffians that challenged Fate with that -arrogant word? What of Hindenburg's Invincible Line that we heard so -much about a few months ago? “Invincible!” cried the massacre-monger, -and the word was repeated by the arch-liar of the mailed fist in half a -dozen speeches. Within a few months the beaten mongrels were whimpering, -not like hounds, but like hyenas out of whose teeth their prey is -plucked. I dare say that Achilles, who made brag a speciality, talked -through his helmet about that operation on the banks of the Styx, and -actually believed himself to be invincible because invulnerable; but his -mother, who had given him the bath that turned his head, would not have -recognised him when Paris had done with him. - -[Illustration: 0041] - -The funny part of the Hindenburg cult--I suppose it should be written -“Kult”--was that there was no one to tell the Germans that they were -doing the work of necromancy in hammering those nails into his wooden -head. Everybody knows that the only really effective way of finishing -off an enemy is to make a wooden effigy of him and hammer nails into it -(every sensible person knows that as the nails are hammered home -the original comes to grief). The feminine equivalent of this -robust operation is equally effective, though the necromancers only -recommended it for the use of schools. The effigy is made of wax, and -you place it before a cheerful fire and stick pins into it. It has the -advantage of being handy and economical, for there are few households -that cannot produce an old doll of wax which would otherwise be thrown -away and wasted. - -But the Germans pride themselves on having got rid of their -superstition, and when people have got rid of their superstition they -have got rid of their sense of humour. If they had not been so hasty in -naming their invincible lines after Wagner's, operas they would surely -have remembered that with the _Siegfried_, the _Parsifal_, and the rest -there was bound to be included _Der Fliegende Hollander_, the pet name -of the German Cavalry: they were the first to fly when the operatic line -was broken; and then--_Gôtterdàmmerung Hellroter!_ - -And why were the Bolsheviks so foolish as to forget that the Czar was -“Nicky” to their paymaster, William, and that that name is the Greek for -“Victory”? - -Having destroyed Nicky, how could they look for anything but disaster? - -The connection of these jottings with our gardens may not be apparent to -every one who reads them. But though the sense of liberty is so great in -our Garden of Peace that I do not hold myself bound down to any of the -convenances of composition, and though I cultivate rather than uproot -even the most flagrant forms of digression in this garden, yet it so -happens that when I begin to write of the most distinguished of the -gardens of Yardley Parva, I cannot avoid recalling that lovely Saturday -when we were seated among its glorious roses, eating peaches that had -just been plucked from the wall. We were a large and chatty company, and -among the party that were playing clock golf on a part of a lovely lawn -of the purest emerald, there did not seem to be one who had read the -menace of the morning papers. Our host was a soldier, and his charming -wife was the daughter of a distinguished Admiral. At the other side -of the table where the dish of peaches stood there was another naval -officer, and while we were swapping stories of the Cape, the butler was -pointing us out to a telegraph messenger who had come through the French -window. The boy made his way to us, taking the envelope from his -belt. He looked from one of us to the other, saying the name of my -_vis-a-vis_--“Commander A--------?” - -“I'm Commander A--------” said he, taking the despatch envelope and -tearing it open. He gave a whistle, reading his message, and rose. - -“No reply,” he told the messenger, and then turned to me. - -“Great King Jehoshaphat!” he said in a low tone. “There is to be no -demobilisation of the Fleet, and all leave is stopped. I'm ordered -to report. And you said just now that nothing was going to happen. -Good-bye, old chap! I've got to catch the 6.20 for Devonport!” - -We had been talking over the morning's news, and I had said that the -Emperor was a master of bluff, not business. - -“I'm off,” he said. “You needn't say anything that I've told you. After -all, it may only be a precautionary measure.” - -He went off; and I never saw him again. - -The precautionary measure that saved England from the swoop that Germany -hoped to bring off as successfully as Japan did hers at Port Arthur in -1904, was taken not by the First Lord of the Admiralty, but by Prince -Louis of Battenberg, who was hounded out of the Service by the clamorous -gossip of a few women who could find no other way of proving their -power. - -And the First Lord of the Admiralty let him go; while he himself -returned to his “gambling”--he so designated the most important--the most -disastrous--incident of his Administration--“a legitimate gamble.” A -legitimate gamble that cost his country over fifty thousand lives! - -Within a month of the holding of that garden party our host had marched -away with his men, and within another month our dear hostess was a -widow. - -***** - -That garden, I think, has a note of distinction about it that is not -shared by any other within the circle taken by the walls of the little -town, several interesting fragments of which still remain. The house by -which it was once surrounded before the desire for “short cuts” caused -a road to be made through it, is by far the finest type of a minor -Elizabethan mansion to be found in our neighbourhood. It is the sort of -house that the house-agents might, with more accuracy than is displayed -in many of their advertisements, describe as “a perfect gem.” It has -been kept in good repair both as regards its stone walls and its roof of -stone slabs during the three hundred--or most likely four hundred years -of its existence, and it has not suffered from that form of destruction -known as restoration. It had some narrow escapes in its time, however. -An old builder who had been concerned in some of the repairs shook his -head sadly when he assured me that a more pigheaded gentleman than the -owner of the house at that time he had never known. - -“He would have it done with the old material,” he explained sadly. -“That's how it comes to be like what it is to-day.” And he nodded in the -direction of the exquisitely-weathered old Caen blocks with the great -bosses of house-leek covering the coping. “It was no use my telling him -that I could run up a nine-inch brick wall with proper coping tiles that -would have a new look for years if no creepers were allowed on it, for -far less money; he would have the old stone, and those squared flints -that you see there.” - -“Some people are very obstinate, thank God!” said I. - -“I could have made as good a job of it as I did of St. Anthony's -Church--you know the new aisle in St. Anthony's, sir,” said he. - -I certainly did know the new aisle in St. Anthony's; but I did not -say that I did in the tone of voice in which I write. It is the most -notorious example of what enormities could be perpetrated in the -devastating fifties and sixties, when a parson and his churchwardens -could do anything they pleased to their churches. - -In a very different spirit was the Barbican of the old Castle of Yardley -repaired under the care of a reverential, but not Reverend, director. -Every stone was numbered and put back into its place when the walls were -made secure. - -The gardens and orchards and lawns behind the walls which were -reconstructed by the owner whose obstinacy the builder was lamenting, -must extend over three or four acres. Such a space allows for a deep -enough fringe of noble trees, giving more than a suggestion of a -park-land which had once had several vistas after the most approved -eighteenth century type, but which have not been maintained by -some nineteenth century owners who were fearful of being accused of -tolerating anything so artificial as design in their gardens. But the -“shrubberies” have been allowed to remain pretty much as they were -planted, with magnificent masses of pink may and innumerable lilacs. The -rose-gardens and the mixed borders are chromatic records of the varying -tastes of generations. - -What made the strongest appeal to me when I was wandering through the -grounds a year or two before that fatal August afternoon was the beauty -of the anchusas. I thought that I had never seen finer specimens or a -more profuse variety of their blues. One might have been looking down -into the indigo of the water under the cliffs of Capri in one place, -and into the delicate ultramarine spaces of the early morning among the -islands of the Ægean in another. - -I congratulated one of the gardeners upon his anchusas, and he smiled in -an eminently questionable way. - -“Maybe I'm wrong in talking to you about them,” - -I said, looking for an explanation of his smile. “Perhaps it is not you -who are responsible for this bit.” - -“It's not that, sir,” he said, still smiling. “I'm ready to take all the -responsibility. You see, sir, I was brought up among anchusas: I was one -of the gardeners at Dropmore.” - -I laughed. - -“If I want to know anything about growing anchusas I'll know where to -come for information,” I said. - -The great charm about these gardens, as well as those of the Crusaders' -planting now enjoyed by the people of the High Street, is that among the -mystery of their shady places one would not be surprised or alarmed to -come suddenly upon a nymph or a satyr, or even old Pan himself. It does -not require one to be - - “A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,” - -to have such an impression conveyed to one, any more than it is -necessary for one to be given over exclusively to a diet of nuts and -eggs to enjoy, as I hope we all do, a swing on a bough, or, as we grow -old, alas! on one of those patent swings made in Paris, U.S.A., where -one gets all the exuberance of the oscillation without the exertion. -Good old Pan is not dead yet, however insistently the poet may announce -his decease. He will be the last of all the gods to go. We have no -particular use for Jove, except as the mildest form of a swear word, -nor for Neptune, unless we are designing a fountain or need to borrow -an emblem of the Freedom of the Seas--we can even carry on a placid -existence though Mercury has fallen so low as to be opposite “rain and -stormy” on the barometric scale, but we cannot do without our Pan--the -jolly, wicked old fellow whom we were obliged to incorporate in our new -theological system under the name of Diabolus. It was he, and not the -much-vaunted Terpsichore, who taught the infant world to dance, to -gambol, and to riot in the woodland. He is the patron of the forest -lovers still, as he was when he first appeared in the shape of an -antelope skipping from rock to rock while our arboreal ancestors -applauded from their boughs and were tempted to give over their -ridiculous swinging by their hands and tails and emulate him on our -common mother Earth. - -Is there any one of us to-day, I wonder, who has not felt as Wordsworth -did, that the world of men and cities is too much with us, and that -the shady arbours hold something that we need and that we cannot find -otherwhere? The claims of the mysterious brotherhood assert themselves -daily when we return to our haunts of a hundred thousand years ago: we -can still enjoy a dance on a woodland clearing, and a plunge into the -sparkling lake by which we dwelt for many thousand years before some -wretch found that the earth could be built up into caves instead of dug -into for domestic shelter. - -Let any one glance over the illustrated advertisements in _Country -Life_ and see how frequently the “old world gardens” are set forth as -an irresistible attraction of “a desirable residence.” The artful -advertisers know that the appeal of the old world is still all-powerful, -especially with those who have been born in a city and have lived in -a city for years. Around Yardley there has sprung up quite recently a -colony of red-brick and, happily, red-roofed villas. Nearly all have -been admirably constructed, and with an appreciation of the modern -requirements in which comfort and economy are combined. They have all -gardens, and no two are alike in every particular; but all are trim and -easily looked after. They produce an abundance of flowers, and they are -embowered in flowering shrubs, every one of which seems to me to be a -specimen. More cheerful living-places could not be imagined; but it is -not in these gardens that you need look for the cloven vestiges of a -faun or the down brushed from the butterfly wings of a fairy. Nobody -wants them there, and there is no chance of any of these wary folk -coming where they are not wanted. If old Pan were to climb over one of -these walls and his footprints were discovered in the calceolaria bed, -the master of the house would put the matter in the hands of the local -police, or write a letter signed “Ratepayer” to the local _Chronicle_, -inquiring how long were highly-taxed residents to be subjected to such -incursions, and blaming the “authorities” for their laxity. - -But there is, I repeat, no chance of the slumbers of any of the -ratepayers being disturbed by a blurred vision of Proteus rising from -the galvanised cistern, or by the blast of Triton's wreathed horn. They -will not be made to feel less forlorn by a glimpse of the former, and -they would assuredly mistake the latter for the hooter of Simpson's -saw-mill. - -“The authorities” look too well after the villas, and the very -suggestion of “authorities” would send Proteus and Triton down to the -deepest depths they had ever sounded. They only come where they are -wanted and waited for. It takes at least four generations of a garden's -growth to allow of the twisted boughs of the oak or the chestnut turning -into the horns of a satyr, or of the gnarled roots becoming his dancing -shanks. - -It was one of the most intelligent of the ratepayers of these bright and -well-kept “residences” who took me to task for a very foolish statement -he had found in a novel of mine (6d. edition) which he said he had -glanced at for a few minutes while he was waiting for a train. I had -been thoughtless enough to make one of the personages, an enterprising -stockbroker, advocate the promotion of a company for the salvage of the -diamonds which he had been told Queen Guinevere flung into the river -before the appearance of the barge with the lily maid of Astolat -drifting to the landing-place below the terrace. - -“But you know they were not real diamonds--only the diamonds of the -poet's imagination,” he said. - -“I do believe you are right,” said I, when I saw that he was in earnest. -And then the mongoose story came to my mind. “They were not real -diamonds,” I said. “But then the man wasn't a real company promoter.” - - - - -CHAPTER THE FOURTH - -Two hundred years is not a long time to look back upon in the history -of Yardley Parva: but it must have been about two hundred years ago that -there were in the High Street some houses of distinction. They belonged -to noblemen who had also mansions in the county, but who were too -sociable and not sufficiently fond of books to be resigned to such -isolation from their order as a mansion residence made compulsory. In -the little town they were in touch with society of a sort: they could -have their whist or piquet or faro with their own set every afternoon, -and compare their thirsts at dinner later in the day. - -One of these modest residences of a ducal family faces the street -to-day, after suffering many vicissitudes, but with the character of -its façade unimpaired. The spacious ground-floor has been turned into -shops--it would be more correct to say that the shops had been turned -into the ground-floor, for structurally there has been no drastic -removal of walls or beams, it has not been subjected to any violent -evisceration, only to a minor gastric operation--say for appendicitis. -On the upper floors the beautiful proportions of the rooms remain -uninjured, and the mantelpieces and the cornices have also been -preserved. - -The back of this house gives on to a part of the dry moat from which the -screen-wall of our Castle rises, for Yardley had once a Castle of its -own, and picturesque remnants of the Keep, the great gateway, and the -walls remain with us. Forty feet from the bed of the moat on this side -the walls rise, and the moat must have been the site of the gardens -of the ducal house, curving to right and left for a couple of hundred -yards, and his lordship saw his chance for indulging in one of the most -transfiguring fads of his day by making two high and broad terraces -against the walls, thereby creating an imposing range of those hanging -gardens that we hear so much of in old gardening books. The Oriental -tradition of hanging gardens may have been brought to Europe with one of -those wares of Orientalism that were the result of the later crusades; -for assuredly at one time the reported splendours of Babylon, Nineveh, -and Eckbatana in this direction were emulated by the great in many -places of the West, where the need for the protection of the great -Norman castles was beginning to wane, and the high, bare walls springing -from the fosses, dry and flooded, looked gaunt and grim just where -people wanted a more genial outlook. - -Powis Castle is the best example I can think of in this connection. -No one who has seen the hanging gardens of these old walls can fail to -appreciate how splendidly effective must have been the appearance of the -terraces of Yardley when viewed from the moat below. But in the course -of time, as the roads improved, making locomotion easier, the ducal -mansion was abandoned in favour of another some miles nearer the coast, -and the note of exclusiveness being gone from the shadow of the Castle -walls, the terraces ceased to be cultivated; the moat being on a level -with the High Street, it became attractive as a site of everyday -houses, until in the course of time there sprang up a row, and then -a public-house or two, and corporate offices and law-courts that only -required a hanging garden at assize times, when smugglers and highwaymen -were found guilty of crimes that made such a place desirable--all these -backed themselves into the moat until it had to be recognised as a -public lane though a _cul-de-sac_ as it is to-day. At the foot of the -once beautiful terraces outhouses and stables were built as they were -needed, with the happiest irregularity, but joined by a flint wall over -which the straggling survivors of the trees and fruits of the days gone -by hang skeleton branches. One doorway between two of the stables opens -upon a fine stairway made of solid blocks of Portland stone, leading -into a gap in the screen-wall of the Castle, the terrace being to right -and left, and giving access to the grounds beyond, the appreciative -possessor of which writes these lines. _Sic transit gloria_. Another -stone stairway serves the same purpose at a different place; but all the -other ascents are of brick and probably only date back to the eighteenth -century. They lead to some elevated but depressing chicken-runs. - -I called the attention of our chief local antiquarian to the succession -of broad terraces and suggested their decorative origin. He shook his -head and assured me that they were ages older than the ducal residence -in the High Street. They belonged to the Norman period and were coeval -with the Castle walls. When I told him that I was at a loss to know why -the Norman builder should first raise a screen-wall forty feet up from -a moat, to make it difficult for an enemy to scale, and then go to an -amazing amount of trouble to make it easily accessible to quite a large -attacking force by a long range of terraces, he smiled the smile of -the local antiquarian--a kindly toleration of the absurdities of the -tyro--saying,-- - -“My dear sir, they would not mind such an attack. They could always -repel it by throwing stones down from the top--it's ten feet thick -there--yes, heavy stones, and melted lead, and boiling water.” - -I did not want to throw cold water upon his researches as to the defence -of a mediæval stronghold, so I thanked him for his information. He -disclaimed all pretensions to exclusive knowledge, and said that he -would be happy to tell me anything else that I wanted to learn about -such things. - -I could not resist expressing my fear to him, as we were parting, -that the Water Company would not sanction the domestic supply from the -kitchen boiler being used outside the house for defensive purposes; but -he stilled my doubts by an assurance that in those days there was no -Water Company. This was well enough so far as it went, but when I asked -where the Castle folk got their water if there was no Company to supply -it, he was slightly staggered, I could see; but, recovering himself, -he said there would certainly have been a Sussex dew-pond within the -precincts, and, as every one knew, this was never known to dry up. - -I did not say that in this respect they had something in common with -local antiquarians; but asked him if it was true that swallows spent the -winter in the mud at the bottom of these ponds. He told me gravely that -he doubted if this could be; for there was not enough mud in even the -largest dew-pond to accommodate all the swallows. So I saw that he was -as sound a naturalist as he was an antiquarian. - -By the way, I wonder how White of Selborne got that idea about the -swallows hibernating in the mud at the bottom of ponds. When so keen a -naturalist as White could believe that, one feels tempted to ask what is -truth, and if it really is to be found, as the swallows are not, at -the bottom of a well. One could understand Dr. Johnson's crediting the -swallow theory, and discrediting the story of the great earthquake at -Lisbon, for he had his own lines of credence and incredulity, and he was -what somebody called “a harbitrary gent”; but for White to have accepted -and promulgated such an absurdity is indeed an amazing thing. - -But, for that matter, who, until trustworthy evidence was forthcoming a -few months ago, ever fancied that English swallows went as far south as -the Cape of Good Hope? This is now, however, an established fact; but -I doubt if White of Selborne would have accepted it, no matter what -evidence was claimed for its accuracy. Several times when aboard ship -off the Cape I have made pets of swallows that came to us and remained -in the chief saloon so long as there was a fly to be found; and once in -the month of October, on the island of St. Helena, I watched the sudden -appearance of a number of the same birds; but it was never suggested -that they had come from England. I think I have seen them at Madeira -in the month of January, but I am not quite certain about my dates in -regard to this island; but I know that when riding through Baines' Kloof -in South Africa, quite early in January, swallows were flying about me -in scores. - -[Illustration: 0059] - -What a pity it seems that people with a reputation for wisdom were for -so long content to think of the swallows only as the messengers of -a love poem: the “swallow sister--oh, fleet, sweet swallow,” or the -“swallow, swallow, flying, flying south”--instead of piling up data -respecting the wonder of their ways! The same may be said of the -nightingale, and may the Lord have mercy on the souls of those who say -it! - -Are we to be told to be ready to exchange _Itylus_ for a celluloid tab -with a date on It? or Keats's _Ode_ for a corrected notation of the -nightingale's trills? At the same time might not a poet now and again -take to heart the final lines--the summing up of the next most beautiful -Ode in the language-- - - “Beauty is Truth, Truth beauty? - -Every fact in Nature seems to me to lead in the direction of poetry, -and to increase the wonder of that of which man is but an insignificant -part. We are only beginning to know a little about the part we were -designed to play in Nature, but the more we know the more surprised, -and, indeed, alarmed, we must be when by a revelation its exact position -is made known to us. We have not yet learned to live. We have been fools -enough to cultivate the forgetting of how to do things that we were -able to do thousands of years ago. The half of our senses have been -atrophied. It is many years since we first began to take leave of our -senses and we have been at it ever since. It is about time that we -started recognising that an acquaintance with the facts of Nature is the -beginning of wisdom. We crystallised our ignorance in phrases that have -been passed on from father to son, and quoted at every opportunity. We -refer to people being “blind as a bat,” and to others being--as “bold -as a lion,” or “harmless as a dove.” Did it never strike the inventor of -any of these similes that it would be well before scattering them abroad -to find out if they were founded on fact? The eyesight of the bat is a -miracle. How such a creature can get a living for the whole year during -the summer months is amazing. The lion is a cowardly brute that runs -away yelling at the sight of a rhinoceros and submits without complaint -to the insults of the elephant. A troop of doves will do more harm to a -wheat-field in an hour than does a thunderstorm. - -And the curious thing is that in those quarters where one would -expect to find wisdom respecting such incidents of Nature one finds -foolishness. Ten centuries of gamekeepers advertise their ignorance -in documentary evidence nailed to the barn doors; they have been -slaughtering their best friends all these years and they continue doing -so. - -After formulating this indictment I opened my _Country Life_, and found -in its pages a confirmation of my evidence by my friend F. C. G., who is -proving himself in his maturity as accomplished a Naturalist as, in his -adolescence, he was a caricaturist in the _Westminster Gazette_. These -are his lines:-- - - -THE GAMEKEEPER'S GIBBET - - Two stoats, a weasel, and a jay, - - In varied stages of decay, - - Are hanging on the gibbet-tree - - For all the woodland folk to see, - - And tattered rags swing to and fro - - Remains of what was once a crow. - - What were their crimes that when they died - - The Earth was not allowed to hide - - Their mangled corpses out of sight, - - Instead of dangling in the light? - - They didn't sin against the Law - - Of “Naturered in tooth and claw,” - - But 'gainst the edicts of the keeper - - Who plays the part of Death the Reaper, - - And doth with deadly gun determine - - What creatures shall be classed as vermin. - - Whether we gibbets find, or grace, - - Depends on accident of place, - - For what is vice in Turkestan - - May be a virtue in Japan. - -F. C. G. - -And what about gardeners? Why, quite recently I was solemnly assured by -one of the profession that I should “kill without mercy”--those were his -words--every frog or toad I found in a greenhouse! - -But for that matter, don't we remember the harsh decrees of our pastors -and masters when as children we yielded to an instinct that had not -yet been atrophied, and slaughtered all the flies that approached us. I -remember that, after a perceptor's reasoning with me through the medium -of a superannuated razor-strop, I was told that to kill a bluebottle was -a sin. Now science has come to the rescue of the new generation from -the consequences of the ignorance of the old, and the boy who kills -most flies in the course of a season is handsomely rewarded. What is -pronounced a sin in one generation is looked on as a virtue in the -next. - -I recollect seeing it stated in a _Zoology for the Use of Schools_, -compiled by an F.R.S., with long quotations from Milton at the head of -every chapter, that the reason why some fishes of the Tropics were so -gorgeously coloured was to enable them to be more easily seen by the -voracious enemy that was pursuing them. That was why God had endowed the -glowworm with his glow--to give him a better chance of attracting the -attention of the nightingale or any other bird that did not go to roost -before dark! And God had also given the firefly its spark that it might -display its hospitality to the same birds that had been entertained by -the glow-worm! My Informant had not mastered the alphabet of Nature. - -Long after I had tried to see things through Darwin's eyes I was -perplexed by watching a cat trying to get the better of a sparrow in the -garden. I noticed that every time it had crouched to make its pounce -the cat waved its tail. Why on earth it should try to make itself -conspicuous in this way when it was flattening itself into the earth -that was nearest to it in colour, and writhing towards its prey, seemed -to me remarkable. Once, however, I was able to watch the cat approach -when I was seated beyond where the sparrow was digging up worms, and the -cat had slipped among the lower boughs of an ash covered with trembling -leaves. - -There among the trembling leaves I saw another trembling leaf--the -soothing, swaying end of my cat's tail; but if I had not known that it -was there I should not have noticed it apart from the moving leaves. The -bird with all its vigilance was deceived, and it was in the cat's jaws -in another moment. - -And I had been calling that cat--and, incidentally, Darwin--a fool for -several years! I do not know what my Zoologist “for the Use of Schools” - would have made of the transaction. Would he have said that a cat -abhorred the sin of lying, and scorned to take advantage of the bird, -but gave that graceful swing to its tail to make the bird aware of its -menacing proximity? - -I lived for eleven years in a house in Kensington with quite a spacious -garden behind it, and was blest for several years by the company of a -pair of blackbirds that made their nest among the converging twigs of a -high lilac. No cat could climb that tree in spring, as I perceived when -I had watched the frustrated attempts of the splendid blue Persian who -was my constant companion. Of course I lived in that garden for hours -every day during the months of April, May, June, and July, and we -guarded the nest very closely, even going so far as to disturb the -balance of Nature by sending the cat away on a visit when the young -birds were being fledged. But one month of May arrived, and though I -noticed the parent blackbirds occasionally among the trees and shrubs, -I never once saw them approaching the old nest, which, as in previous -seasons, was smothered out of sight in the foliage about it, for a -poplar towered above the lilac, and was well furnished. - -I remarked to my man that I was afraid our blackbirds had deserted us -this year, and he agreed with me. But one day early in June I saw the -cat look wistfully up the lilac. - -“He hasn't forgotten the nest that was there,” I said. “But I'm sure -he'll find out in which of the neighbouring gardens the new one has been -built.” - -But every day he came out and gazed up as if into the depths of the -foliage above our heads. - -“Ornithology is his hobby,” said I, “but he's not so smart as I fancied, -or he would be hustling around the other gardens where he should know -murder can be done with impunity.” - -The next day my man brought out a pair of steps, and placing them firmly -under the lilac, ascended to the level of where the nest had been in -former years. - -At once there came the warning chuckle of the blackbirds from the boughs -of the poplar. - -“Why, bless my soul! There are four young ones in the nest, and they're -nearly ready to fly,” sang out the investigator from above, and the -parents corroborated every word from the poplar. - -I was amazed. It seemed impossible that I could have sat writing under -that tree day after day for two months, watching for signs that the -birds were there, and yet fail to notice them at their work either of -hatching or feeding. It was not carelessness or indifference they had -eluded; it was vigilance. I had looked daily for their coming, and -there was no fine day in which I was not in the garden for four hours, -practically immovable, and the nest was not more than ten feet from the -ground, yet I had remained in ignorance of all that was going on above -my head! - -With such an experience I do not think that it becomes me to sneer too -definitely at the stupidity of gamekeepers or farmers. It is when I read -as I do from week to week in _Country Life_ of the laborious tactics -of those photographers who have brought us into closer touch with the -secret life of birds than all the preceding generations of naturalists -succeeded in doing, that I feel more charitably disposed toward the men -who mistake friends for foes in the air. - -Every year I give prizes to the younger members of our household -to induce them to keep their eyes and their ears open to their -fellow-creatures who may be seen and heard at times. The hearing of the -earliest cuckoo meets with its reward, quite apart from the gratifying -of an aesthetic sense by the quoting of Wordsworth. The sighting of the -first swallows is quoted somewhat lower on the chocolate exchange, -but the market recovers almost to a point of buoyancy on hearing the -nightingale. The cuckoo is an uncertain customer and requires some -looking after; but the swallows are marvellously punctual. We have never -seen them in our neighbourhood before April the nineteenth. For five -years the Twenty-first is recorded as their day. The nightingale does -not visit our garden, which is practically in the middle of the town; -but half a mile away one is heard almost every year. Upon one happy -occasion it was seen as well as heard, which constituted a standard of -recognition not entertained before. - -I asked for an opinion of the bird from the two girls who had had this -stroke of luck. - -Each took a different standpoint in regard to its attainments. - -“I never heard anything so lovely in all my life,” said Rosamund, aged -ten. “It made you long to--to--I don't know what. It was lovely.” - -“And what was your opinion, Olive?” I asked of the second little girl. - -My Olive branch looked puzzled for a few minutes, but she had the sense -to perceive that comparative criticism is safe, when a departure from -the beaten track is contemplated. Her departure was parabolic. - -“I didn't think it half as pretty a bird as Miss Midleton's parrot,” she -said with conviction. - -Miss Midleton's parrot is a gorgeous conglomeration of crimson and blue, -like the 'at of 'arriet, that should be looked at through smoked glasses -and heard not at all. - -I think that I shall have Olive educated to take her place in a poultry -run; while Rosamund looks after the rose garden. - -***** - -My antiquary came to me early on the day after I had asked him for -information about the hanging gardens. - -“I've been talking to my friend Thompson on the subject of those hanging -gardens of the Duke's,” said he; “and I thought that you would like to -hear what he says. He agrees with me--I fancied he would. The Duke had -no power to hang any one in his gardens, Thompson says; and even if he -had the power, the pear-trees that we see there now weren't big enough -to hang a man on.” - -“A man--a man! My dear sir, I wasn't thinking of his hanging men there: -it was clothes--clothes--linen--pants--shirts--pajamas, and the like.” - -“Oh, that's quite another matter,” said he. - -I agreed with him. - - - - -CHAPTER THE FIFTH - -In a foregoing page I brought those who are ready to submit to my -guidance up to the boundary wall of my Garden of Peace by the stone -staircases sloping between the terraces of the old hanging gardens of -the Castle moat. With apologies for such a furtive approach I hasten to -admit them through the entrance that is in keeping with their rank and -station. I bow them through the Barbican Entrance, which is of itself a -stately tower, albeit on the threshold of modernity, having been built -in the reign of Edward II., really not more than six hundred years ago. -I feel inclined to apologise for mentioning this structure of yesterday -when I bring my friends on a few yards to the real thing--the true -Castle gateway, gloriously gaunt and grim, with the grooves for the -portcullis and the hinges on which the iron-barbed gate once swung. -There is no suggestion in its architecture of that effeminacy of the -Perpendicular Period, which may be seen in the projecting parapet of -the Barbican, pierced to allow of the molten lead of my antiquary being -ladled out over the enemy who has not been baffled by the raising of the -drawbridge. Molten lead is well enough in its way, and no doubt, when -brought up nice and warm from the kitchen, and allowed to drop through -the apertures, it was more or less irritating as it ran off the edge of -the helmets below and began to trickle down the backs of an attacking -party. The body-armour was never skintight, and molten lead has had at -all times an annoying way of finding out the joinings in a week-day coat -of mail; we know how annoying the drip of a neighbour's umbrella can be -when it gets through the defence of one's mackintosh collar and meanders -down one's back.--No, not a word should be said against molten lead as a -sedative; but even its greatest admirers must allow that as a medium -of discouragement to an enemy of ordinary sensitiveness it lacked the -robustness of the falling Rock. - -The Decorative note of the Perpendicular period may have been in harmony -with such trifling as is incidental to molten lead, but the stern and -uncompromising Early Norman gate would defend itself only with the -Rock. That was its character; and when a few hundredweight of solid -unsculptured stone were dropped from its machicolated parapet upon the -armed men who were fiddling with the lock of the gate below, the people -in the High Street could hardly have heard themselves chatting across -that thoroughfare on account of the noise, and tourists must have -fancied that there was a boiler or two being repaired by a conscientious -staff anxious to break the riveting record. - -Everything remains of the Castle gateway except the Gate. The structure -is some forty feet high and twelve feet thick. The screen-wall was -joined to it on both sides, and when you pass under the arch and through -a more humble doorway in the wall you are at the entrance to my Garden -of Peace. - -This oaken door has a little history of its own. For several years after -I came to Yardley Parva I used to stand opposite to it in one of the -many narrow lanes leading to the ramparts of the town. I knew that -the building to which it belonged, and where some humble industry was -carried on, embodied the ancient church of Ste. Ursula-in-Foro. The -stone doorway is illus- trated in an old record of the town, and I saw -where the stone had been worn away by the Crusaders sharpening the barbs -of their arrows on it for luck. I had three carefully thought-out plans -for acquiring this door and doorway; but on consideration I came to the -conclusion that they were impracticable, unless another Samson were to -come among us with all the experience of his Gaza feat. - -I had ceased to pass through that ancient lane; it had become too much -for me; when suddenly I noticed building operations going on at the -place; a Cinema palace was actually being constructed on the consecrated -site of the ancient church! Happily the door and the doorway were not -treated as material for the housebreaker; they were removed into the -cellar of the owner of the property, and from him they were bought by me -for a small sum--much less than I should have had to pay for the shaped -stones alone. The oak door I set in the wall of my house, and the -doorway I brought down my garden where it now features as an arch -spanning one of the paths. - -But my good fortune did not end here; for a few years later a fine -keystone with a sculptured head of Ste. Ursula was dug up in the little -garden behind the site of the tiny church, and was presented to me with -the most important fragments of two deeply-carved capitals such as one -now and again sees at the entrance to a Saxon Church; and so at last -these precious relics of mediaeval piety are joined together after -a disjunctive interval of perhaps five or six hundred years, and, -moreover, on a spot not more than a few hundred feet from where they had -originally been placed. - -Sir Martin Conway told some years ago of his remarkable discovery in the -grounds of an English country house, of one of the missing capitals of -Theodocius, with its carved acanthus leaves blown by the wind and the -monogram of Theodocius himself. A more astounding discovery than this -can hardly be imagined. No one connected with it was able to say how -it found its way to the place where it caught the eye of a trustworthy -antiquarian; and this fact suggested to me the advisability of attaching -an engraved label to such treasure trove, giving their history as far -as is known to the possessors. The interest attaching to them would be -thereby immensely increased, and it would save much useless conjecture -on the part of members of Antiquarian Societies. Some people seem to -think that paying a subscription to an Antiquarian Society makes one -a fully qualified antiquarian, just as some people fancy that being a -Royal Academician makes one a good painter. - -The great revival in this country in the taste for the Formal Garden and -the Dutch Garden has brought about the introduction of an immense number -of sculptured pieces of decoration; and one feels that in the course -of lime our gardens will be as well furnished in this way as those of -Italy. The well-heads of various marbles, with all the old ironwork that -one sees nowadays in the yards of the importers, are as amazing as -the number of exquisite columns for pergolas, garden seats of the most -imposing character, vases of bronze as well as stone or marble, and -wall fountains. And I have no doubt that the importers would make any -purchaser acquainted with the place of origin of most of these. Of -course we knew pretty well by now where so many of the treasures of the -Villa Borghese are to be found; but there are hundreds of other pieces -of sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian work that arrive in -England, and quite as many that go to the United States, without any -historical record attached to them. I do hope that the buyers of -these lovely things will see how greatly their value and the interest -attaching to them would be increased by such memoranda of their origin. - -The best symbol of Peace is a ploughshare that was once a sword; and -surely a garden that has been made in the Tiltyard of a Norman Castle -may be looked on as an emblem of the same Beatitude. That is how it -comes that every one who enters our garden cries,-- - -“How wonderfully peaceful!” - -I have analysed their impression that forces them to say that. The mild -bustle of the High Street of a country town somehow imposes itself upon -one, for the simple reason that you can hear it and observe it. The -hustle of London is something quite different. One is not aware of it. -You cannot see the wood for the trees. It is all a wild roar. But when -our High Street is at its loudest you can easily distinguish one sound -from another. - -Then the constant menace of motor-cars rushing through the High Street -leaves an impression that does not vanish the moment one turns into the -passage of the barbican; and upon it comes the sight of the defensive -masonry, which is quite terrific for the moment; then comes the looming -threat of the Norman gateway which gives promise of no compromise! It is -not necessary that one should have a particularly vivid imagination to -hear the clash and clang of armoured men riding forth with lances and -battleaxes; and when one steps aside out of their way, the rest is -silence and the silence is rest. - -“How wonderfully peaceful!” every one cries. - -And so't is. - -You can hear the humming of a bee--the flick of a swallow's wing, the -tinkle of the fountain--a delightful sound like the counting out of the -threepenny pieces in the Church Vestry after a Special Collection--and -the splash of a blackbird in its own particular bath. These are the -sounds that cause the silence to startle you. “Darkness visible,” - is Milton's phrase. But to make an adaptation of it is not enough to -express what one feels on entering a walled garden from a street even of -a country town. There is an outbreak of silence the moment the door is -closed, and it is in a hushed tone that one says, when one is able to -speak,-- - -“How wonderfully peaceful!” - -I think that a garden is not a garden unless it is walled. Perhaps a -high hedge of yew or box conveys the same impression as a built-up wall; -but I am not quite certain on this point. The impression has remained -with us since the days when an Englishman's home was his castle and an -Englishman's castle his home. What every one sought was security, and a -consciousness of security only came when one was within walls. In going -through a country of wild animals one has a kindred feeling when the -fire is lighted at nightfall. Another transmitted instinct is that which -forces one to look backward on a road when the sound of steps tells one -that one is being followed. The earliest English gardens of which any -record remains were walled. In the illustrations to the _Romaunt of the -Rose_, we see this; and possibly the maze became a feature of the garden -in order to increase the sense of security from the knife of an enemy -whose slaughter had been overlooked by the mediaeval horticultural -enthusiast, who sought for peace and quiet on Prussian principles. - -I think it was the appearance of the walls that forced me to buy my -estate of a superficial acre. Certainly until I saw them I had no -idea of such a purchase. If any one had told me on that morning when I -strolled up the High Street of Yardley Parra while the battery of my car -was being re-charged after the manner of those pre-magneto times, that I -should take such a step I would have laughed. But it was a day of August -sunshine and there was an auction of furniture going on in the house. -This fact gave me entree to the “old-world garden” of the agent's -advertisement, and when I saw the range of walls ablaze with -many-coloured snapdragons above the double row of hollyhocks in the -border at their foot, I “found peace,” as the old Revivalists used to -phrase the sentiment, only their assurance was of a title to a mansion -in the skies, while I was less ambitious. I sought peace and ensued it, -purchasing the freehold, and I have been ensuing it ever since. - -[Illustration: 0077] - -The mighty walls of the old Castle compass us about as they did the -various dwellers within their shelter eight hundred years ago. On one -side they vary from twelve feet to thirty in height, but on the outer -side they rise from the moat and loom from forty to fifty feet above -the lowest of the terraces. At one part, where a Saxon earthwork makes a -long curved hillock at the farther end of the grounds, the wall is only -ten feet above the grassy walk, but forty feet down on the other side. -The Norman Conqueror simply built his wall resting against the mound -of the original and more elementary fortification. Here the line of -the screen breaks off abruptly; but we can see that at one time it was -carried on to an artificial hill on the summit of which the curious -feature of a second keep was built--the well-preserved main keep forms -an imposing incident of the landscape in the opposite direction. - -The small plateau which was once enclosed by the screen-wall is not more -than three acres in extent; from its elevation of a couple of hundred -feet it overlooks the level country and the shallow river-way for -many miles--a tranquil landscape of sylvan beauty dominated by the -everlasting Downs. Almost to the very brink of the lofty banks of the -plateau on one side we have an irregular bowling-green, bordered by a -row of pollard ashes. From a clause in one of my title deeds I find that -three hundred years ago the bowling-green was in active existence and -played a useful part as a landmark in the delimitation of the frontier. -It is brightly green at all seasons; and the kindly neighbouring -antiquarian confided in me how its beauty was attained and is -maintained. - -“Some time ago an American tourist asked the man who was mowing it how -it came to be such a fine green, and says the man, 'Why, it's as easy -as snuffling: all you've got to do is to lay it down with good turf at -first and keep on cutting it for three or four hundred years and the -thing is done.' Smart of the fellow, wasn't it?” - -“It was very smart,” I admitted. - -Our neighbour showed his antiquarian research in another story as well -as in this one. It related to the curate of a local parish who, in the -unavoidable absence of his vicar, who was a Rural Dean, found himself -taking a timid breakfast with the Bishop of the Diocese. He was -naturally a shy man and he was shying very highly over an egg that he -had taken and that was making a very hearty appeal to him. Observing -him, the Bishop, with a thorough knowledge of his Diocese, and being -well aware that the electoral contest which had been expected a -few months earlier had not taken place, turned to the curate and -remarked---- - -But if you've heard the story before what he remarked will not appeal -to you so strongly as the egg did to the clergyman; so there is nothing -gained by repeating the remark or the response intoned by the curate. - -But when our antiquarian told us both we heartily agreed with him that -that curate deserved to be a bishop. - -We are awaiting without impatience. I trust, the third of this Troika -team of anecdotes--the one that refers to the Scotsman and Irishman who -came to the signpost that told all who couldn't read to inquire at the -blacksmith's. That story is certain to be revealed to us in time. The -antiquarian from the stable of whose memory the other two of the team -were let loose cannot possibly restrain the third. - -Such things are pleasantly congenial with the scent of lavender in an -old-world garden that knows nothing of how busy people are in the new -world outside its boundary. But what are we to say when we find in a -volume of serious biography published last year only as a previously -unheard-of instance of the wit of the “subject,” the story of the -gentleman who, standing at the entrance to his club, was taken for the -porter by a member coming out? - -“Call me a cab,” said the latter. - -“You're a cab,” was the prompt reply. - -The story in the biography stops there; but the original one shows the -wit making a second score on punning points. - -“What do you mean?” cried the other. “I told you to call me a cab.” - -“And I've called you a cab. You didn't expect me to call you handsome,” - said the ready respondent. - -Now that story was a familiar Strand story forty years ago when H. J. -Byron was at the height of his fame, and he was made the hero of the pun -(assuming that it is possible for a hero to make a pun). - -But, of course, no one can vouch for the mint from which such small coin -issues. If a well-known man is in the habit of making puns all the puns -of his generation are told in the next with his name attached to them. -H. J. Byron was certainly as good a punster as ever wrote a burlesque -for the old Gaiety; though a good deal of the effect of his puns was due -to their delivery by Edward Terry. But nothing that Byron wrote was so -good as Burnand's title to his Burlesque on _Rob Roy_, the play which -Mrs Bateman had just revived at Sadler's Wells. Burnand called it -_Robbing Roy, or Scotch'd, not Kilt_. The parody on “Roy's Wife,” sung -by Terry, was exquisite, and very topical,-- - - Roy's wife of Alldivalloch! - - Oh, while she - - Is wife to me, - - Is life worth living, Mr. Mallock?” - -Mr. Mallock's book was being widely discussed in those days, and _Punch_ -had his pun on it with the rest. - -“Is Life worth living?” - -“It depends on the liver.” - -The Garrick Club stories of Byron, Gilbert, and Burnand were -innumerable. To the first-named was attributed the dictum that a play -was like a cigar. “If it was a good one all your friends wanted a box; -but if it was a bad one no amount of puffing would make it draw.” - -The budding _littérateurs_ of those days--and nights--used to go from -hearing stories of Byron's latest, to the Junior Garrick to hear Byron -make up fresh ones about old Mrs. Swanborough of the Strand Theatre. -Some of them were very funny. Mrs. Swan-borough was a clever old -lady with whom I was acquainted when I was very young. She never gave -utterance to the things Byron tacked on to her. I recollect how amused -I was to hear Byron's stories about her told to me by Arthur Swanborough -about an old lady who had just retired from the stage, and then, passing -on to Orme Square on a Sunday evening, to hear “Johnny Toole,” as he was -to the very youngest of us, tell the same stories about a dear old girl -who was still in his company at the Folly Theatre. - -So much for the circulation of everyday anecdotes. Dean Swift absorbed -most of the creations of the early eighteenth century; then Dr. Johnson -became the father of as many as would till a volume. Theodore Hook, Tom -Hood, Shirley Brooks, Albert Smith, Mark Lemon, and several others whose -names convey little to the present generation, were the reputed parents -of the puns which enlivened the great Victorian age. But if a scrupulous -historian made up his mind to apply for a paternity order against any -one of these gay dogs, that historian would have difficulty in bringing -forward sufficient evidence to have it granted. - -The late Mr. M. A. Robertson, of the Treaty Department of the Foreign -Office, told me that his father--the celebrated preacher known to fame -as “Robertson of Brighton”--had described to him the important part -played by the pun in the early sixties. At a dinner-party at which the -Reverend Mr. Robertson was a guest, a humorist who was present picked up -the menu card and set the table on a roar with his punning criticism -of every _plat_. Robertson thought that such a spontaneous effort was -a very creditable _tour de force_--doubtless the humorist would have -called it a _tour de farce_--but a few nights later he was at another -party which was attended by the same fellow-guest, and once again the -menu, which happened to be exactly the same also, was casually picked up -and dealt with _seriatim_ as before, with an equally hilarious effect. -He mentioned to the hostess as a curious coincidence that he should find -her excellent dinner identical with the one of which he had partaken at -the other house: and then she confided in him that the great punster -had given her the bill of fare that afforded him his opportunity of -displaying his enlivening trick! Robertson gave me the name of this -Victorian artist, but there is no need for me to reveal it in this -place. The story, however, allows us a glimpse into the studio of one of -the word-jugglers of other days; and when one has been made aware of the -machinery of his mysteries, one ceases to marvel. - -Two brothers, Willie and Oscar Wilde, earned many dinners in their time -by their conversational abilities; and I happen to know that before -going out together they rehearsed very carefully the exchange of their -impromptus at the dinner table. Both of these brothers were brilliant -conversationalists, and possessed excellent memories. They were equally -unscrupulous and unprincipled. The only psychological distinction -between the two was that the elder, Willie, possessed an impudence of a -quality which was not among Oscar's gifts. Oscar was impudent enough to -take his call on the first night of _Lady Windermere's Fan_ smoking -a cigarette, and to assure the audience that he had enjoyed the play -immensely; but he was never equal to his brother in this special line. -Willie was a little over twenty and living with his parents in Dublin, -where he had a friendly little understanding with a burlesque actress -who was the principal boy in the pantomime at the Gaiety Theatre. She -wrote to him one day making an appointment with him for the night, and -asking him to call for her at the stage door. The girl addressed the -letter to “Wm. Wilde, Esq.,” at his home, and as his father's name was -William he opened it mechanically and read it. He called Willie into his -study after breakfast and put the letter before him, crying, “Read that, -sir!” - -The son obeyed, folded it up and handed it back, saying quietly,-- - -“Well, dad, do you intend to go?” - -To obtain ready cash and good dinners, Willie Wilde, when on the staff -of a great London newspaper was ready to descend to any scheming and -any meanness. But the descriptive column that he wrote of the sittings -of the Parnell Commission day after day could not be surpassed for -cleverness and insight. He would lounge into the Court at any time he -pleased and remain for an hour or so, rarely longer, and he spent the -rest of the day amusing himself and flushing himself with brandies -and soda at the expense of his friends. He usually began to write his -article between eleven and twelve at night. - -Such were these meteoric brothers before the centrifugal force due to -their revolutionary instinct sent them flying into space. - -But one handful of the meteoric dust of the conversation of either was -worth all the humour of the great Victorian punsters. - - - - -CHAPTER THE SIXTH - -From the foregoing half-dozen pages it is becoming pretty clear that a -Garden of Peace may also be a Garden of Memories. But I am sure that one -of the greatest attractions of garden life to a man who has stepped out -of a busy world--its _strepitumque virumque_, is that it _compels_ him -to look forward, while _permitting_ him to look back. The very act of -dropping a seed into the soil is prospective. To see things growing is -stimulating, whether they are children or other flowers. One has no time -to think how one would order one's career, avoiding the mistakes of the -past, if one got a renewal of one's lease of life, for in a garden we -are ever planning for the future; but these rustling leaves of memory -are useful as a sort of mulch for the mind. - -And the garden has certainly grown since I first entered it ten years -ago. It was originally to be referred to in the singular, but now it -must be thought of in the plural. It was a garden, now it is gardens; -and whether I have succeeded or not my experience compels me to believe -that to aim at the plural makes for success. Two gardens, each of thirty -feet square, are infinitely better than one garden of sixty. I am sure -of that to-day, but it took me some time to find it out. A garden to be -distinctive must have distinct features, like every other thing of life. - -I notice that most writers on garden-making begin by describing what -a wilderness their place was when they first took it in hand. I cannot -maintain that tradition. Mine had nothing of the wilderness about it. -On the contrary, it was just too neat for my taste. The large lawn on -to which some of the lower rooms of the house opened, had broad paths on -each side and a broad flower border beyond. There was not a shrub on the -lawn and only one tree--a majestic deodar spreading itself abroad at an -angle of the nearest wing of the house; but on a knoll at the farther -end of the lawn there were, we discovered next summer, pink and white -mays, a wild cherry, and a couple of laburnums, backed by a towering -group made up of sycamores and chestnuts. Such a plan of planting could -not be improved upon, I felt certain, though I did not discuss it at -the time; for I was not out to make an alteration, and my attention was -wholly occupied with the appearance of the ancient walls, glorious with -snapdragon up to the lilacs that made a coping of colour for the whole -high range, while the lower brick boundary opposite was covered with -pears and plums clasping hands in espalier form from end to end. - -But I was not sure about the flower borders which contained alternate -clumps of pink geraniums and white daisies. Perhaps they were too -strongly reminiscent of the window-boxes of the Cromwell Road through -which I had walked every day for nearly twenty years, and in time one -grows weary even of the Cromwell Road! - -But so well did the accident of one elbow of the wall of the -bowling-green pushing itself out lend itself to the construction of the -garden, that the first and most important element in garden-design was -attained. This, I need hardly say, is illusion and surprise. One -fancied that here the limits of the ground had been reached, for a fine -deciduous oak seemed to block the way; but with investigation one found -oneself at the entrance to a new range of grounds which, though only -about three times as large as the first, seemed almost illimitable. - -The greater part had at one time been an orchard, we could see; but the -trees had been planted too close to one another, and after thirty or -forty years of jostling, had ceased to be of any pictorial or commercial -value, and I saw that these would have to go. Beyond there was a kitchen -garden and a large glass-house, and on one side there was a long curve -of grass terrace made out of the Saxon or Roman earthwork, against -which, as I have already said, the Norman walls were built, showing only -about twelve or fifteen feet above the terrace, while being forty or -fifty down to the dry moat outside. This low mural line was a mass of -antirrhinums, wallflowers, and such ferns as thrive in rock crevices. - -There was obviously not much to improve in all this. We were quite -satisfied with everything as it stood. There was nothing whatsoever of -the wilderness that we could cause to blossom as the rose, only--not a -rose was to be seen in any part of the garden! - -We were conscious of the want, for our Kensington garden had been a mass -of roses, and we were ready to join on to Victor Hugo's “_Une maison -sans enfants,” “un jardin sans roses?_” But we were not troubled; roses -are as easily to be obtained as brambles--in fact rather more easily-- -and we had only to make up our minds where to plant them and they would -blush all over the place the next summer. - -We had nothing to complain of but much to be thankful for, when, after -being in the house for a month, I found the old gardener, whom we had -taken over with the place, wheeling his barrow through a doorway which I -knew led to a dilapidated potting-shed, and as I saw that the barrow -was laden with rubbish I had the curiosity to follow him to see where he -should dispose of it. - -He went through a small iron gate in the wall alongside the concealed -potting-house, and, following him, I found myself to my amazement in a -small walled space, forty feet by thirty, containing rubbish, but giving -every one with eyes to see such a picture of the Barbican, the Castle -Gate with the Keep crowning the mound beyond, as made me shout--such a -picture as was not to be found in the county! - -If it had a fault at all it was to be found in its perfection. Every -one has, I hope, seen the Sham Castle, the castellated gateway, built on -Hampton Down, near Bath, to add picturesqueness to the prospect as seen -from the other side. This is as perfectly made a ruin as ever was built -up by stage carpenters. There was no reason why it should not be so, -for it was easy to put a stone in here and there if an improvement were -needed, or to dilapidate a bit of a tower until the whole would meet -with the approval even of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who are, I -am given to understand, the best informed authorities in England on the -assessment of dilapidations. I must confess that the first glimpse I -had of the picture that stood before my eyes above my newly-acquired -rubbish-heaps suggested the perfection of a sham. The _mise-en-scène_ -seemed too elaborate--too highly finished--no detail that could add to -the effect being absent. But there it was, and I remained looking at it -for the rest of the day. - -The over-conscientious agents had said not a word in the inventory -of the most valuable asset in connection with the property. They -had scrupulously advertised the “unique and valuable old-fashioned -residence,” and the fact that it was partially “covered by creepers”--a -partiality to which I was not very partial--and that the “billiard -saloon” had the same advantages--they had not failed to allude to the -gardens as “old-world and quaint,” but not one word had they said about -this view from the well-matured rubbish-heaps! - -It was at this point that I began to think about improvements, and the -first essay in this direction was obvious. I had the rubbish removed, -the ground made straight, a stone sundial placed in the centre, and a -Dutch pattern of flower-beds cut around it. - -On the coping of the walls--they were only six feet high on our side, -but forty on the culside--I placed lead and stone vases and a balustrade -of wrought iron-work. I made an immense window in the wall of the -potting-shed--a single sheet of plate-glass with four small casements -of heraldic stained glass; and then the old potting-shed I panelled in -coloured marbles, designed a sort of domed roof for it and laid down a -floor in mosaics. I had in my mind a room in the Little Trianon in all -this; and I meant to treat the view outside as a picture set in -one wall. Of course I did not altogether succeed; but I have gone -sufficiently far to deceive more than one visitor. Entering the room -through a mahogany door set with a round panel of beautifully-clouded -onyx--once a table-top in the gay George's pavilion' at Brighton--a -visitor sees the brass frame of the large window enclosing the picture -of the Barbican, the Gateway, and the Keep, and it takes some moments to -understand it. - -All this sounds dreadfully expensive; but through finding a really -intelligent builder and men who were ready to do all that was asked of -them, and, above all, through having abundance of material collected -wherever it was going at shillings instead of pounds, I effected the -transformation at less than a sixth of the lowest assessment of the cost -made by professional friends. To relieve myself from any vain charge -of extravagance, I may perhaps be permitted to mention that when the -property was offered for sale in London a week before I bought it, not -a single bid was made for it, owing to an apparent flaw in one of the -title-deeds frightening every one off. Thus, without knowing it. I -arrived on the scene at the exact psychological moment--for a purchaser; -and when I got the place I found myself with a considerable sum in hand -to spend upon it, and that sum has not yet been all spent. The bogey -fault in the title was made good by the exchange of a few letters, and -it is now absolutely unassailable. - -It must also be remembered by such people as may be inclined to talk of -extravagance, that it is very good business to spend a hundred pounds -on one's property if the property is thereby increased in value by three -hundred. I have the best of all reasons for resting in the assurance -that for every pound I have spent I am three to the good. There is no -economy like legitimate expenditure. - -I wonder if real authorities in garden design would think I was right in -treating after the Dutch fashion the little enclosed piece of ground on -which I tried my prentice hand. - -In order to arrive at a conclusion on this point I should like to be -more fully informed as to what is congruous and what incongruous. What -are the important elements to consider in the construction of a Dutch -garden, and are these elements in sympathy with the foreground of such a -picture as I had before me when I made up my mind on the subject? - -Now I have seen many Dutch gardens in Holland, and in Cape -Colony--relics of the old Dutch Colonial days--and every one knows how -conservative is this splendid if somewhat over-hospitable race. Some -of the gardens lying between Cape Town and Simon's Bay, and also on the -higher ground above Mossel Bay are what old-furniture dealers term “in -mint condition”--I disclaim any suggestion of a pun upon the herb, which -in Dutch houses at the Cape is not used in sauce for lamb. They are as -they were laid out by the Solomons, the Cloetes, the Van der Byls, and -the other old Dutch Colonial families; so far from adapting, themselves -to the tropical and subtropical conditions existing in the Colony, they -brought their home traditions into their new surroundings with results -that were both happy and profitable. There are certainly no finer or -more various bulbs than those of Dutch growth at the Cape, and I have -never seen anything more beautiful than the heaths on the Flats between -Mowbray and Rondesbosch at the foot of the Devil's Peak of Table -Mountain. - -[Illustration: 0096] - -A Dutch gentleman once said to me in Rotterdam, “If you want to see -a real Dutch garden you must go to the Cape, or, better still, to -England--for it.” - -He meant that in both places greater pains are taken to maintain the -original type than, generally speaking, in Holland. - -I know that he spoke of what he knew, and with what chances of -observation I have had, I long ago came to the conclusion that the -elements of what is commonly called a Dutch garden do not differ so -greatly from, those that went to the making of the oldest English herb -and flower garden. This being so, when I asked myself how I should lay -out a foreground that should be congenial with the picture seen through -the window of the marble-panelled room, I knew that the garden should -be as like as possible that which would be planted by the porter's wife -when the Castle was at its best. The porter's lodge would join on to -the gate, and one side of the gateway touches my ground, where the lodge -would be; so that, with suggestions from the Chatelaine, who had seen -the world, and the Chaplain, who may have been familiar with the -earliest gardens in England--the monastery gardens--she would lay out -the little bit of ground pretty much, I think, as I have done. In those -days people had not get into the way of differentiating between gardens -and gardens--there was no talk about “false notes” in design, men did -not sleep uneasily o' nights lest they had made an irremediable mistake -in giving hospitality to a crimson peony in a formal bed or in failing -to dig up an annual that had somehow found a place in a herbaceous -border. But a garden bounded by walls must be neat or nothing, and so -the porter's wife made a Dutch garden without being aware of what she -was doing, and I followed her example, after the lapse of a few hundred -years, knowing quite well what I was doing in acting on the principle -that the surroundings should suggest the garden. I know now, however, -that because William the Conqueror had a fine growth of what we -call _Dianthus Caryophylla_ at his Castle of Falaise, we should have -scrupulously followed his example. However, the elements of a Dutch -garden are geometrical, and within four walls and with four right -angles one cannot but be geometrical. One cannot have the charming -disorderliness of a meadow bounded by two meandering streams. That -is why I know I was right in refusing to allow any irregularity in my -treatment of the ground. I put my sundial exactly in the middle and made -it the centre for four small beds crossed by a narrow grass path; and -except for the simple central design there is no attempt at colour -effect. But every one of the little beds is brilliant with tulips or -pansies or antirrhinum or wallflowers, as the season suggests. There -is the scent of lavender from four clumps--one at each angle of the -walls--and over the western coping a pink rose climbs. To be consistent -I should confine the growth of this rose to an espalier against the -wall. I mean to be consistent some day in this matter and others nearly -as important, and I have been so meaning for the past ten years. - -I picked up some time ago four tubs of box and placed one in each corner -of the grass groundwork of the design; but I soon took them away; they -were far too conspicuous. They suggested that I was dragging in Holland -by the hair of the head, so to speak. - -It is the easiest thing in the world to spoil a good effect by -over-emphasis; and any one who fancies that the chief note in a Dutch -garden is an overgrowth of box makes a great mistake. It is like putting -up a board with “This way to the Dutch garden,” planted on its face. - -I remember years ago a play produced at the Hay-market, when Tree had -the theatre and Mr. J. Comyns Carr was his adviser. It was a successor -to an adaptation of _Called Back_, the first of the “shilling shockers,” - as they were styled. In one scene the curtain rose upon several of the -characters sucking oranges, and they kept at it through the whole scene. -That is what it is termed “local colour”; and it was hoped that every -one who saw them so employed was convinced that the scene was laid in -Seville. It might as well have been laid in the gallery of a theatre, -where refreshment is taken in the same form. - -M. Bizet achieved his “local colour” in Carmen in rather a more subtle -way. He did not bother about oranges. The first five bars of the -overture prepared us for Spain and we lived in it until the fall of the -curtain, and we return to it when one of the children strums a few notes -of “_L'amour est un oiseau rebelle_,” or the Toreador's braggadocio. - -But although I have eaten oranges in many parts of the world since I -witnessed that play at the Haymarket, I have never been reminded of it, -and to-day I forget what it was all about, and I cannot for the life of -me recollect what was its name. - -So much for the ineffectiveness of obvious effects. - - - - -CHAPTER THE SEVENTH - -It is a dreadful thing to live in the same town as an Atheist! I had -no idea that a house in Yardley Parva would ever be occupied by such an -one. I fancied that I was leaving them all behind me in London, where I -could not avoid getting into touch with several; no one can unless one -refuses to have anything to say to the intellectual or artistic classes. -People in London are so callous that they do not seem to mind having -atheists to dinner or talking with them without hostility at a club. -That is all very well for London, but it doesn't do in Yardley Parva, -thank God! Atheism is very properly regarded as a distinct social -disqualification--almost as bad as being a Nonconformist. - -Friswell is the name of our atheist. What brought him here I cannot -guess. But he bought a house that had once been the rectory of a -clergyman (when I mention the Clergy in this book it must be taken -for granted that I mean a priest of the Church of England) and the -predecessor of that clergyman had been a Rural Dean. How on earth -the agent could sell him the house is a mystery that has not yet been -solved, though many honest attempts in this direction have been made. -The agent was blamed for not making such inquiries as would have led -to the detection of the fellow. He was held responsible for Friswell's -incorporation as a burgess, just as Graham the greengrocer was held -responsible for the epidemic of mumps which it is known he brought into -the town in a basket of apples from Baston. - -But the agent's friends make excuses for him. While admitting that he -may have been culpably careless in order to secure a purchaser for a -house that nobody seemed to want in spite of its hallowed associations, -they are ready to affirm that these atheists have all the guile of their -Master so that even if the agent had been alert in making the essential -inquiries, the man would not hesitate to give the most plausible answers -in order to accomplish his object--the object of the wolf that has his -eye on a sheepfold. - -This may be so--I decline to express an opinion one way or another. All -I know is that Friswell has written some books that are known in every -part of the civilised world and in Germany as well, and that we find him -when he comes here quite interesting and amusing. But needless to say -we do not permit him to go too far. We do not allow ourselves to be -interested in him to the jeopardising of our principles or our position -in Yardley Parva. We do not allow ourselves to be amused at the -reflection that he is going in the wrong direction; on the contrary, we -shudder when it strikes us. But so insidious are his ways that--Heaven -forgive me--I feel that he tells me much that I do not know about -what is true and what is false, and that if he were to leave the -neighbourhood I should miss him. - -It is strange that he should be married to a charming woman, who is a -daughter of probably the most orthodox vicarage in the Midlands--a home -where every Sunday is given over to such accessories of orthodoxy as an -Early Service, Morning Church, Sirloin of Beef with Yorkshire Pudding, -Fruit Tart and Real Egg Custard, Sunday School, the Solution of -Acrostics, Evening-song, and Cold Chicken with Salad. - -And yet she could ally herself with a man who does not hesitate to -express the opinion that if a child dies before it is baptized it should -not be assumed that anything particular happens to it, and that it was -a great pity that the Church was upheld by three murderers, the first -being Moses, who promulgated the Ten Commandments, the second Paul, -who promulgated the Christianity accepted by the Church, and the third -Constantine, who promulgated the Nicene Creed. I have heard him say -this, and much more, and yet beyond a doubt his wife still adores him. -laughs at him, says he is the most religious man she ever knew, and goes -to church regularly! - -One cannot understand such a thing as this. In her own vicarage home -every breath that Mrs. Fris-well breathed was an inspiration of the -Orthodox--and yet she told me that her father, who was for twenty-seven -years Vicar of the parish and the Bishop's Surrogate, thought very -highly of Mr. Friswell and his scholarship! - -That is another thing to puzzle over. Of course we know that scholarship -has got nothing to do with Orthodoxy--it is the weak things of the world -that have been chosen to confound the wise---but for a vicar of the -Church of England to remain on friendly terms with an atheist, and to -approve of his daughter's marriage with such an one, is surely not to be -understood by ordinary people. - -I do not know whether or not I neglected my duty in refraining from -forbidding Friswell my garden when I heard him say that the God -worshipped by the Hebrews with bushels of incense must have been -regarded by them as occupying a position something like that of the -chairman of the smoking concert; and that the High Church parson here -was like a revue artist, whose ambition is to have as many changes of -costume as was possible in every performance; but though I was at the -point of telling him that even my toleration had its limits, yet somehow -I did not like to go to such a length without Dorothy's permission; and -I know that Dorothy likes him. - -She says the children are fond of him, and she herself is fond of Mrs. -Friswell. - -“Yes,” I told her, “you would not have me kill a viper because Rosamund -had taken a fancy to its markings and its graceful action before darting -on its prey.” - -“Don't be a goose,” said she. “Do you suggest that Mr. Friswell is a -viper?' - -“Well, if a viper may be looked on as a type of all----” - -“Well, if he is a viper, didn't St. Paul shake one off his hand into -the fire before any harm was done? I think we would do well to leave Mr. -Friswell to be dealt with by St. Paul.” - -“Meaning that----” - -“That if the exponent of the Christianity of the Churches cannot be -so interpreted in the pulpits that Mr. Friswell's sayings are rendered -harmless, well, so much the worse for che Churches.” - -“There's such a thing as being too liberal-minded, Dorothy,” said I -solemnly. - -“I suppose there is,” said she; “but you will never suffer from it, my -beloved, except in regard to the clematis which you will spare every -autumn until we shall shortly have no blooms on it at all.” - -That was all very well; but I was uncertain about Rosamund. She is quite -old enough to understand the difference between what Mr. Friswell says -in the garden and what the Reverend Thomas Brown-Browne says in the -pulpit. I asked her what she had been talking about to Mr. Friswell when -he was here last week. - -“I believe it was about Elisha,” she replied. “Oh, yes; I remember I -asked him if he did not think Elisha a horrid vain old man.” - -“You asked him that?” - -“Yes; it was in the first lesson last Sunday--that about the bears he -brought out of the wood to eat the poor children who had made fun of -him--horrid old man!” - -“Rosamund, he was a great prophet--one of the greatest,” said I. - -“All the same he was horrid! He must have been the vainest as well as -the most spiteful old man that ever lived. What a shame to curse the -poor children because they acted like children! You know that if that -story were told in any other book than the Bible you would be the first -to be down on Elisha. If I were to say to you, Daddy, 'Go up, thou bald -head!'--you know there's a little bald place on the top there that you -try to brush your hair over--if I were to say that to you, what would -you do?” - -“I suppose I should go at you bald-headed, my dear,” said I -incautiously. - -“I don't like the Bible made fun of,” said Dorothy, who overheard what I -did not mean for any but the sympathetic ears of her eldest daughter. - -“I'm not making fun of it, Mammy,” said the daughter. “Just the -opposite. Just think of it--forty-two children--only it sounds much more -when put the other way, and that makes it all the worse--forty and two -poor children cruelly killed because a nasty old prophet was vain and -ill-tempered!” - -“It doesn't say that he had any hand in it, does it?” I suggested in -defence of the Man of God. - -“Well, not--directly,” replied Rosamund. “But it was meant to make out -that he had a hand in it. It says that he cursed them in the name of the -Lord.” - -“And what did Mr. Friswell say about the story?” inquired Dorothy. - -“Oh, he said that, being a prophet, Elisha wasn't thinking about the -present, but the future--the time we're living in--the Russian Bear or -the Bolsheviks or some of the--the--what's the thing that they kill Jews -with in Russia, Mammy?” - -“I don't know--anything that's handy, I fancy, and not too expensive,” - replied the mother. - -“He gave it a name--was it programme?” asked the child. - -“Oh, a pogrom--a pogrom; though I fancy a programme of Russian music -would have been equally effective,” I put in. “Well, Mr. Friswell may -be right about the bears. I suppose it's the business of a prophet to -prophesy. But I should rather fancy, looking at the transaction from the -standpoint of a flutter in futures, and also that the prophet had the -instincts of Israel, that his bears had something to do with the Stock -Exchange.” - -“Mr. Friswell said nothing about that,” said Rosamund. “But he explained -about Naaman and his leprosy and how he was cured.” - -“It tells us that in the Bible, my dear,” said Dorothy, “so of course it -is true. He washed seven times in the Jordan.” - -“Yes, Mr. Friswell says that it is now known that half a dozen of the -complaints translated leprosy in the Bible were not the real leprosy, -and it was from one of these that Naaman was suffering, and what Elisha -did was simply to prescribe for him a course of seven baths in the -Jordan which he knew contained sulphur or something that is good for -people with that complaint. He believes in all the miracles. He says -that what was looked on as a miracle a few years ago is an everyday -thing now.” - -“He's quite right, darling,” said Dorothy approvingly. Then turning to -me, “You see, Mr. Friswell has really been doing his best to keep the -children right, though you were afraid that he would have a bad effect -upon them.” - -“I see,” said I. “I was too hasty in my judgment. He is a man -of uncompromising orthodoxy. We shall see him holding a class in -Sunday-school next, or solving acrostics instead of sleeping after the -Sunday Sirloin. Did he explain the Gehazi business, Rosamund?” - -“He said that he was at first staggered when he heard that Elisha had -refused the suits of clothes; but if Elisha did so, he is sure that his -descendants have been making up for his self-denial ever since.” - -“But about Gehazi catching the leprosy or whatever it was?” - -“I said I thought it was too awful a punishment for so small a thing, -though, of course, it was dreadfully mean of Gehazi. But Mr. Friswell -laughed and said that I had forgotten that all Gehazi had to do to make -himself all right again was to fellow the prescription given to Naamun; -so he wasn't so hard on the man after all.” - -“There, you see!” cried Dorothy triumphantly. “You talk to me about the -bad influence Mr. Friswell may have upon the children, and now you find -that he has been doing his best to make the difficult parts of the Bible -credible! For my own part, I feel that a flood of new light has been -shed by him over some incidents with which I was not in sympathy -before.” - -“All right, have it your own way,” said I. - -“You old goose!” said she. “Don't I know that why you have your knife in -poor Friswell is simply because he thought your scheme of treillage was -too elaborate.” - -“Anyhow I'm going to carry it out 'according to plan,' to make use of a -classic phrase,” said I. - -And then I hurried off to the tool-house; and it was only when I had -been there for some time that I remembered that the phrase which I had -fancied I was quoting very aptly, was the explanation of a retreat. - -I hoped that it would not strike Dorothy in that way, and induce her to -remind me that it was much apter than I had desired it to be. - -But there is no doubt that Friswell was right about Gehazi carrying out -the prescription given to Naaman, for he remained in the service of the -prophet, and he would not have been allowed to do that if he had been a -leper. - - - - -CHAPTER THE EIGHTH - -I have devoted the foregoing chapter to Friswell without, I trust, any -unnecessary acrimony, but simply to show the sort of man he was who took -exception to the scheme of Formal Garden that I disclosed to him long -ago. He actually objected to the Formal Garden which I had in my mind. - -But an atheist, like the prophet Habakkuk of the witty Frenchman, is -“_capable de tout_” - -I have long ago forgiven Friswell for his vexatious objection, but I -admit that I am only human, and that now and again I awake in the still -hours of darkness from a nightmare in which I am tramping over formal -beds of three sorts of echiverias, pursued by Friswell, flinging at me -every now and again Mr. W. Robinson's volume on _Garden Design_, -which, as every one knows, is an unbridled denunciation of Sir Reginald -Blomfield's and Mr. Inigo Triggs's plea for _The Formal Garden_. But I -soon fall asleep again with, I trust, a smile struggling to the surface -of the perspiration on my brow, as I reflect upon my success in spite of -Friswell and the antiformalists. - -More than twenty-five years have passed since the battle of the books -on the Formal Garden took place, adding another instance to the many -brought forward by Dorothy of a garden being a battlefield instead of -a place of peace. I shall refer to the fight in another chapter; -for surely a stimulating spectacle was that of the distinguished -horticulturalist attacking the distinguished architect with mighty -billets of yews which, like Samson before his fall, had never known -shears or secateur, while the distinguished architect responded with -bricks pulled hastily out from his builders' wall. In the meantime I -shall try to account for my treatment of my predecessor's lawn, which, -as I have already mentioned, occupied all the flat space between the -house and the mound with the cherries and mays and laburnums towered -over by the sycamores and chestnuts. - -It was all suggested to me by the offer which 1 had at breaking-up price -of what I might call a “garden suite,” consisting of a fountain, with -a wide basin, and the carved stone edging for eight beds--sufficient -to transform the whole area of the lawn “into something rich and -strange,”--as I thought. - -I had to make up my mind in a hurry, and I did so, though not without -misgiving. I had never had a chance of high gardening before, and I had -not so much confidence in myself as I have acquired since, misplaced -though it may be, in spite of my experience, I see now what a bold step -it was for me to take, and I think it is quite likely that I would have -rejected it if I had had any time to consider all that it meant. I had, -however, no more than twenty-four hours, and before a fourth of -that time had passed I received some encouragement in the form of my -publisher's half-yearly statement. - -Now, Dorothy and I had simply been garden-lovers--I mean lovers of -gardens, though I don't take back the original phrase. We had never been -garden enthusiasts. We had gone through the Borghese, the Villa d'Este, -the Vatican, the bowers behind the Pitti and the Uffizi, and all the -rest of the show-places of Italy and the French Riviera--we had spent -delightful days at every garden-island of the Caribbean, and had gone on -to the plateaus of South America, where every prospect pleases and there -is a blaze of flowers beneath the giant yuccas--we had even explored Kew -together, and we had lived within a stone's throw of Holland House and -the painters' pleasaunces of Melbury Road, but with all we had remained -content to think of gardens without making them any important part of -our life. And this being so, I now see how arrogant was that act of -mine in binding myself down to a transaction with as far-reaching -consequences to me as that of Dr. Faustus entailed to him. - -Now I acknowledge that when I looked out over the green lawn and thought -of all that I had let myself in for, I felt anything but arrogant. The -destruction of a lawn is, like the state of matrimony in the Church -Service, an act not to be lightly entered into; and I think I might -have laid away all that stone-work which had come to me, until I should -become more certain of myself--that is how a good many people think -within a week or two of marriage--if I had not, with those doubts -hanging over me, wandered away from the lawn and within sight of the -straggling orchard with its rows of ill-planted plums and apples that -had plainly borne nothing but leaves for many years. They were becoming -an eye-sore to me, and the thought came in a flash:-- - -“This is the place for a lawn. Why not root up these unprofitable and -uninteresting things and lay down the space in grass?” - -Why not, indeed? The more I thought over the matter the more reconciled -I became to the transformation of the house lawn. I felt as I fancy the -father of a well-beloved daughter must feel when she tells him that -she has promised to marry the son of the house at the other side of -his paddock. He is reconciled to the idea of parting with her by the -reflection that she will still be living beyond the fence, and that -he will enjoy communion with her under altered conditions. That is the -difference between parting _with_ a person and parting _from_ a person. - -And now, when I looked at the house lawn, I saw that it had no business -to be there. It was an element of incongruity. It made the house look as -if it were built in the middle of a field. A field is all very well in -its place, and a house is all very well in its place, but the place of -the house is not in the middle of a field. It looks its worst there and -the field looks its worst when the house is overlooking it. - -I think that it is this impression of incongruity that has made what is -called The Formal Garden a necessity of these days. We want a treatment -that will take away from the abruptness of the mass of bricks and mortar -rising straight up from the simplest of Nature's elements. We want a -hyphenated House-and-Garden which we can look on as one and indivisible, -like the First French Republic. - -In short, I think that the making of the Formal Garden is the marriage -ceremony that unites the house to its site, “and the twain shall be one -flesh.” - -That is really the relative position of the two. I hold that there are -scores of forms of garden that may be espoused to a house; and I am not -sure that such a term as Formal is not misleading to a large number of -people who think that Nature should begin the moment that one steps out -of one's house, and that nothing in Nature is formal. I am not going to -take on me any definition of the constituent elements of what is termed -the Formal Garden, but I will take it on me to stand up against such -people as would have us believe that the moment you enter a house -you leave Nature outside. A house is as much a product of Nature as -a woodland or a rabbit warren or a lawn. The original house of that -product of Nature known as man was that product of Nature known as a -cave. For thousands of years before he got into his cave he had made his -abode in the woodland. It was when he found he could do better than hang -on to his bough and, with his toes, take the eggs out of whatever nests -he could get at, that he made the cave his dwelling; and thousands of -years later he found that it was more convenient to build up the clay -into the shape of a cave than to scoop out the hillside when he wanted -an addition to the dwelling provided for him in the hollows made by that -natural incident known as a landslide. But the dwelling-house of to-day -is nothing more than a cave built up instead of scooped out. -Whether made of brick, stone, or clay--all products of Nature--it -is fundamentally the same as the primeval cave dwelling; just as a -Corinthian column is fundamentally identical with the palm-tree which -primeval man brought into his service when he wished to construct a -dwelling dependent of the forest of his pendulous ancestors. The rabbit -is at present in the stage of development of the men who scooped out -their dwellings; the beaver is in the stage of development of the men -who gave up scooping and took to building; and will any one suggest that -a rabbit warren or a beaver village is not Nature? - -Sir R. Blomfield, in his book to which I have alluded, will not have -this at all. “The building,” he says, “cannot resemble anything in -Nature, unless you are content with a mud hut and cover it with grass.” - That may be true enough; but great architect that he is, he would -have shown himself more faithful to his profession if he had been more -careful about his foundations. If he goes a little deeper into the -matter he will find that man has not yet been civilised or “architected” - out of the impressions left upon him by his thousands of years of -cave-dwelling, any more than he has been out of his arboreal experiences -of as many thousand years. While, as a boy, he retains vividly those -impressions of his ancestors which gradually wear off--though never so -completely as to leave no trace behind them--he cannot be restrained -from climbing trees and enjoying the motion of a swing; and his chief -employment when left to his own devices is scooping out a cave in a -sand-bank. For the first ten or fifteen years of his life a man is in -his instincts many thousand years nearer to his prehistoric relations -than he is when he is twenty; after that the inherited impressions -become blurred, but never wholly wiped out. He is still stirred to the -deepest depths of his nature by the long tresses of a woman, just as was -his early parent, who knew that he had to depend on such long tresses to -drag the female on whom he had set his heart to his cave. - -Scores of examples could be given of the retention of these inherited -instincts; but many of them are in more than one sense of the phrase, -“far-fetched.” When, however, we know that the architectural design -which finds almost universal favour is that of the column or the -pilaster--which is little more than the palm-tree of the Oriental forest -of many thousand years ago--I chink we are justified in assuming that -we have not yet quite lost sight of the fact that our dwellings are most -acceptable when they retain such elements as are congenial with their -ancient homes, which homes were undoubtedly incidents in the natural -landscape. - -That is why I think that the right way to claim its appropriateness for -what is called the Formal Garden is, not that a house has no place in -Nature, and therefore its immediate surrounding should be more or less -artificial, but that the house is an incident in Nature modified by -what is termed Art, and therefore the surround should be of the same -character. - -At the same time, I beg leave to say in this place that I am not so -besotted upon my own opinion as to be incapable of acknowledging -that Sir R. Blomfield's belief that a house can never be regarded as -otherwise than wholly artificial, may commend itself to a much larger -clientèle than I can hope for. - -In any case the appropriateness of the Formal Garden has been proved -(literally) down to the ground. As a matter of fact, no one ever thought -of questioning it in England until some remarkable innovators, who -called themselves Landscape Gardeners, thought they saw their way -to work on a new system, and in doing so contrived to destroy many -interesting features of the landscape. - -But really, landscape gardening has never been consistently defined. Its -exponents have always been slovenly and inconsistent in stating their -aims; so that while they claim to be all for giving what they call -Nature the supreme place in their designs, it must appear to most people -that the achievement of these designs entails treating Nature most -unnaturally. The landscape gardeners of the early years of the cult -seem to me to be in the position of the boy of whom the parents said, -“Charlie is so very fond of animals that we are going to make a butcher -of him.” To read their enunciation of the principles by which they -professed to be inspired is to make one feel that they thought the -butchery of a landscape the only way to beautify it. - -But, I repeat, the examples of their work with which we are acquainted -show but a small amount of consistency with their professions of faith. -When we read the satires that were written upon their work in the -eighteenth century, we really feel that the lampooners have got hold -of the wrong brief, and that they are ridiculing the upholders of the -Formal Garden. - -So far as I was concerned in dealing with my insignificant garden home, -I did not concern myself with principles or theories or schools or -consistency or inconsistency; I went ahead as I pleased, and though -Friswell shook his head--I have not finished with him yet on account -of that mute expression of disagreement with my aims--I enjoyed myself -thoroughly, if now and again with qualms of uneasiness, in laying out -what I feel I must call the House Garden rather than the Formal Garden, -where the lawn had spread itself abroad, causing the wing of the house -to have something of the appearance of a lighthouse springing straight -up from a green sea. As it is now, that green expanse suggests a -tropical sea with many brilliant islands breaking up its placid surface. - -That satisfies me. If the lighthouse remains, I have given it a _raison -d'etre_ by strewing the sea with islands. - -I made my appeal to Olive, the practical one. - -“Yes,” she said, after one of her thoughtful intervals. “Yes, I think it -does look naturaler.” - -And I do believe it does. - - - - -CHAPTER THE NINTH - -I differ from many people who knew more about garden-making than I know -or than I ever shall know, in believing that it is unnecessary for the -House Garden--I will adopt this name for it--to be paved between the -beds. I have seen this paving done in many cases, and to my mind it adds -without any need whatsoever a certain artificiality to the appearance -of this feature of the garden. By all means let the paths be paved with -stone or brick; I have had all mine treated in this way, and thereby -made them more natural in appearance, suggesting, as they do, the dry -watercourse of a stream: every time I walk on thorn I remember the -summer aspect of that beautiful watercourse at Funchal in the island of -Madeira, which becomes a thoroughfare for several months of the year; -but I am sure that the stone edgings of the beds and of the fountain -basin look much better surrounded by grass. All that one requires to do -in order to bring the House Garden in touch with the house is to bring -something of the material of the house on to the lawn, and to force -the house to reciprocate with a mantle of ampélopsis patterned with -clematis. - -All that I did was to remove the turf within the boundary of my stone -edging and add the necessary soil. A week was sufficient for all, -including the fountain basin and the making of the requisite attachment -to the main water pipe which supplies the garden from end to end. - -And here let me advise any possible makers of garden fountains on no -account to neglect the introduction of a second outlet and tap for -the purpose of emptying the pipe during a frost. The cost will be very -little extra, and the operation will prevent so hideous a catastrophe as -the bursting of a pipe passing through or below the concrete basin. My -plumber knew his business, and I have felt grateful to him for making -such a provision against disaster, when I have found six inches of ice -in the basin after a week's frost. - -At first I was somewhat timid over the planting of the stone-edged beds. -I had heard of carpet bedding, and I had heard it condemned without -restraint. I had also seen several examples of it in public gardens at -seaside places and elsewhere, which impressed me only by the ingenuity -of their garishness. Some one, too, had put the veto upon any possible -tendency on my part to such a weakness by uttering the most condemnatory -words in the vocabulary of art--Early Victorian! To be on the safe -side I planted the beds with herbaceous flowers, only reserving two for -fuchsias, of which I have always been extremely fond. - -I soon came to find out that a herbaceous scheme in that place was a -mistake. For two months we had to look at flowers growing, for a month -we had to look at things rampant, and for a month we had to watch things -withering. At no time was there an equal show of colour in all the beds. -The blaze of beauty I had hoped for never appeared: here and there -we had a flash of it, but it soon flickered out, much to our -disappointment. If the period of the ramp had synchronised for all the -beds it would not have been so bad; but when one subject was rampant the -others were couchant, and no one was pleased. - -The next year we tried some more dwarf varieties and such annuals as -verbenas, zinnias, scabious, godetias, and clarkias, but although every -one came on all right, yet they did not come on simultaneously, and I -felt defrauded of my chromatic effects. A considerable number of people -thought the beds quite a success; but we could not see with their eyes, -and our feeling was one of disappointment. - -Happily, at this time I bought for a few shillings a few boxes of the -ordinary _echeveria secunda glauca_, and, curiously enough, the same day -I came upon a public place where several beds of the same type as mine, -set in an enclosed space of emerald grass, were planted with -echeveria and other succulents, in patterns, with a large variety of -brilliantly-coloured foliage and a few dwarf calceolarias and irisines. -In a moment I thought I saw that this was exactly what I needed--whether -it was carpet bedding or early Victorian or inartistic, this was what I -wanted, and I knew that I should not be happy until I got it. Every bed -looked like a stanza of Keats, or a box of enamels from the Faubourg de -Magnine in Limoges, where Nicholas Laudin worked. - -That was three years ago, and although I planted out over three thousand -echeverias last summer, 1 had not to buy another box of the same -variety; I had only to find some other succulents and transplant some -violas in order to achieve all that I hoped for from these beds. For -three years they have been altogether satisfying with their orderly -habits and reposeful colouring. The glauca is the shade that the human -eye can rest upon day after day without weariness, and the pink and blue -and yellow and purple violas which I asked for a complement of colours, -do all that I hoped they would do. - -Of course we have friends who walk round the garden, look at those beds -with dull eyes of disapproval, and walk on after imparting information -on some contentious point, such as the necessity to remove the shoots -from the briers of standard roses, or the assurance that the slugs -are fond of the leaves of hollyhock. We have an occasional visitor who -says,-- - -“Isn't carpet-bedding rather old-fashioned?” - -So I have seen a lady in the spacious days of the late seventies shake -her head and smile pityingly in a room furnished with twelve ribbon-back -chairs made by the great Director. - -“Old-fashioned--gone out years ago!” were the terms of her criticism. - -But so far as I am concerned I would have no more objection to one of -the ribbon-borders of long ago, if it was in a suitable place, than I -would have to a round dozen of ribbon-back chairs in a panelled room -with a mantelpiece by Boesi and a glass chandelier by one of the Adam -Brothers. It is only the uninformed who are ready to condemn something -because they think that it is old-fashioned, just as it is only the -ignorant who extol something because it happens to be antique. I was -once lucky enough to be able to buy an exquisitely chased snuff-box -because the truthful catalogue had described it as made of pinchbeck. -For the good folk in the saleroom the word pinchbeck was enough. It -was associated in their minds with something that was a type of the -meretricious. But the pinchbeck amalgam was a beautiful one, and the -workmanship of some of the articles made of it was usually of the -highest class. Now that people are better educated they value--or at -least some of them value--a pinchbeck buckle or snuff-box for 'its -artistic beauty. - -We see our garden more frequently than do any of our visitors, and we -are satisfied with its details--within bounds, of course. It has never -been our ambition to emulate the authorities who control the floral -designs blazing in the borders along the seafront of one of our -watering-places, which are admired to distraction by trippers under the -influence of a rag-time band and other stimulants. We do not long so -greatly to see a floral Union Jack in all its glory at our feet, or -any loyal sentiment lettered in dwarf beet and blue lobelia against a -background of crimson irisine. We know very well that such marvels are -beyond our accomplishment. What we hoped for was to have under our -eyes for three months of the year a number of beds full of wallflowers, -tulips, and hyacinths, and for four months equally well covered with -varied violas, memsembrianthium, mauve ageratum, the præcox dwarf roses, -variegated cactus used sparingly, and as many varieties of eche-veria -used lavishly, with here and there a small dracaena or perhaps a tuft -of feathery grass or the accentuations of a few crimson begonias to show -that we are not afraid of anything. - -We hold that the main essential of the beds of the House Garden is -“finish.” They must look well from the day they are planted in the third -week of May until they are removed in the last week of October. We do -not want that barren interval of a month or six weeks when the tulips -have been lifted and their successors are growing. We do not want a -single day of empty beds or colourless beds; we do not want to see a -square inch of the soil. We want colour and contour under our eyes from -the first day of March until the end of October, and we get it. We have -no trouble with dead leaves or drooping blooms--no trouble with snails -or slugs or leather-jackets. Every bed is presentable for the summer -when the flowers that bloom in the spring have been removed; the effect -is only agreeably diversified when the begonias show themselves in July. - -Is the sort of thing that I have described to be called carpet-bedding? -I know not and I trow not; all that I know is that it is the sort of -thing that suits us. - -Geometry is its foundation and geometry represents all that is -satisfying, because it is Nature's closest ally when Nature wishes to -produce Beauty. Almost every flower is a geometrical study. Let rose -bushes ramp as they may, the sum of all their ramping is that triumph of -geometry, the rose. Let the clematis climb as unruly as it may, the -end of its labours is a geometrical star; let the dandelion be as -disagreeable as it pleases--I don't intend to do so really, only for the -sake of argument--but its rows of teeth are beautifully geometrical, and -the fairy finish of its life, which means, alas! the magical beginning -of a thousand new lives, is a geometrical marvel. - -But I do not want to accuse myself of excusing myself over much for my -endeavour to restore a fashion which I was told had “gone out.” I only -say that if what I have done in my stone-edged geometrical beds is to -be slighted because some fool has called it carpet-bedding, I shall at -least have the satisfaction of knowing that I have worked on the -lines of Nature. Nature is the leader of the art of carpet-bedding on -geometrical lines. Nature's most beautiful spring mattress is a carpet -bed of primroses, wild hyacinths, daffodils, and daisies--every one -of them a geometrical marvel. As a matter of fact the design of every -formal bed in our garden is a copy of a snow crystal. - -Of course, so far as conforming to the dictates of fashion in a garden -is concerned, I admit that I am a nonconformist. I do not think that any -one who has any real affection for the development of a garden will be -ready to conform to any fashion of the hour in gardening. I believe that -there never was a time when the artistic as well as the scientific side -of garden design was so fully understood or so faithfully adhered to -as it is just now. There is nothing to fear from the majority of the -exponents of the art; it is with the unconsidering amateurs that the -danger lies. The dangerous amateur is the one who assumes that there -is fashion in gardening as there is a fashion in garments, and that one -must at all hazards live up to the _dernier cri_ or get left behind in -the search for the right thing. F or instance, within the last six or -seven years it has become “the right thing” to have a sunk garden. Now a -sunk garden is, literally, as old as the hills; the channel worn in the -depth of a valley by an intermittent stream becomes a sunk garden in -the summer. The Dutch, not having the advantage of hills and vales, were -compelled to imitate Nature by sinking their flower-patches below the -level of the ground. They were quite successful in their attempt to -put the garden under their eyes; by such means they were able fully to -admire the patterns in which their bulbs were arranged. Put where is the -sense in adopting in England the handicap of Holland? It is obvious that -if one can look down upon a garden from a terrace one does not need -to sink the ground to a lower level. And yet I have known of several -instances of people insisting on having a sunk garden just under a -terrace. They had heard that sunk gardens were the fashion and they -would not be happy if there was a possibility of any one thinking that -they were out of the fashion. - -Then the charm of the rock garden was being largely advertised and -talked about, so mounds of broken bricks and stones and “slag” and -rubbish arose alongside the trim villas, and the occupants slept in -peace knowing that those heights of rubbish represented the height--the -heights of fashion. Then came the “crevice” fashion. A conscientious -writer discoursed of the beauty of the little things that grow between -the bricks of old walls, and forthwith yards of walls, guaranteed to be -of old bricks, sprang up in every direction, with hand-made crevices in -which little gems that had never been seen on walls before, were stuck, -and simple nurserymen were told that they were long behind the time -because they were unable to meet the demand for house leeks. I have seen -a ten-feet length of wall raised almost in the middle of a villa garden -for no other purpose than to provide a foot-hold for lichens. The last -time I saw it it was providing a space for the exhibition of a printed -announcement that an auction would take place in the house. - -But by far the most important of the schemes which of late have been -indulged in for adding interest to the English garden, is the “Japanese -style.” The “Chinese Taste,” we all know, played a very important part -in many gardens in the eighteenth century, as it did in other directions -in the social life of England. The flexible imagination of Thomas -Chippendale found it as easy to introduce the leading Chinese notes -in his designs as the leading French notes; and his genius was so well -controlled that his pieces “in the Chinese Taste” did not look at all -incongruous in an English mansion. The Chinese wallpaper was a beautiful -thing in its way, nor did it look out of place in a drawing-room with -the beautifully florid mirrors of Chippendale design on the walls, and -the noble lacquer caskets and cabinets that stood below them. Under the -same impulse Sir Thomas Chambers was entrusted with the erection of the -great pagoda in Kew Gardens, and Chinese junks were moored alongside -the banks to enable visitors to drink tea “in the Chinese Taste.” The -Staffordshire potters reproduced on their ware some excellent patterns -that had originated with the Celestials, and in an attempt to be -abreast of the time, Goldsmith made his _Citizen of the World_ a Chinese -gentleman. - -For obvious reasons, however, there was no Japanese craze at that -time. Little was known of the supreme art of Japan, and nothing of the -Japanese Garden. Now we seem to be making up for this deprivation of the -past, and the Japanese style of gardening is being represented in many -English grounds. I think that nothing could be more interesting, or, in -its own way, more exquisite: but is it not incongruous in its new-found -home? - -It is nothing of the sort, provided that it is not brought into close -proximity to the English garden. In itself it is charming, graceful, and -grateful in every way; but unless its features are kept apart from those -of the English garden, it becomes incongruous and unsatisfactory. It is, -however, only necessary to put it in its place, which should be as far -away as possible from the English house and House Garden, and it will -be found fully to justify its importation. It possesses all the elements -that go to the formation of a real garden, the strongest of these being, -in my opinion, a clear and consistent design; unless a garden has both -form and design it is worth no consideration, except from the very -humblest standpoint. - -Its peculiar charm seems to me to be found in what the nurseryman's -catalogue calls the “dwarf habit.” It is essentially among the -miniatures. Though it may be as extensive as one pleases to make it, yet -it gains rather than loses when treated as its trees are by the skilful -hands of the miniaturist. Without suggesting that it should be reduced -to toy dimensions, yet I am sure that it should be so that no tall human -being should be seen in it. It is the garden of a small race. A big -Englishman should not be allowed into it. It would not be giving it fair -play. - -Fancying that I have put its elements into a nutshell, carrying my -minimising to a minimum, I repeat the last sentence to Dorothy. - -“You would not exclude Mr. Friswell,” said she. - -“Atheist Friswell is not life-size: he may go without rebuke into the -most miniature Japanese garden in Bond Street,” I reply gratefully. - -“And how about Mrs. Friswell?” she asks. - -“She is three sizes too big, even in her chapel shoes,” I replied. - -Mrs. Friswell, in spite of her upbringing--perhaps on account of -it--wears the heelless shoes of Little Bethel. - -“Then Mr. Friswell will never be seen in a Japanese garden,” said -Dorothy. - -She does like Mrs. Friswell. - -[Illustration: 0130] - - - - -CHAPTER THE TENTH - -But there is in my mind one garden In which I should like to see -the tallest and most truculent of Englishmen. It is the Tiergarten at -Berlin. I recollect very vividly the first time that I passed through -the Brandenburger Gate to visit some friends who occupied a flat in -the block of buildings known as “In den Zelten.” I had just come within -sight of the sentry at the gate-house when I saw him rush to the door of -the guard-room and in a few seconds the whole guard had turned out with -a trumpet and a drum. I was surprised, for I had not written to say that -I was coming, and I was quite unused to such courtesy either in Berlin -br any other city where there is a German population. - -Before the incident went further I became aware of the fact that all the -vehicles leaving “Unter den Linden” had become motionless, and that the -officers who were in some of them were standing up at the salute. The -only carriage in motion was a landau drawn by a pair of gray horses, -with a handsome man in a plain uniform and the ordinary helmet of an -infantry soldier sitting alone with his face to the horses. I knew -him in a moment, though I had never seen him before--the Crown Prince -Frederick, the husband of our Princess Royal--the “Fritz” of the -intimate devotional telegrams to “Augusta” from the battlefields of -France in 1870. - -That Crown Prince was the very opposite to his truculent son and -that contemptible blackguard, his son's son. Genial, considerate, and -unassuming, disliking all display and theatrical posing, he was much -more of an English gentleman than a German Prince. His son Wilhelm had -even then begun to hate him--so I heard from a high personage of the -Court. - -I am certain that it was his reading of the campaign of 1870-1 that -set this precious Wilhelm--this Emperor of the penny gaff--on his last -enterprise. If one hunts up the old newspapers of 1870 one will read -in every telegram from the German front of the King of Prussia and the -Crown Prince marching to Victory, in the campaign started by a forgery -and a lie, by that fine type of German trickery, unscrupulousness, -brutality, and astuteness, Bismarck. Wilhelm could not endure the -thought of the glory of his house being centred in those who had gone -before him, and he chafed at the years that were passing without history -repeating itself. He could with difficulty restrain himself from his -attempt to dominate the world until his first-begotten was old enough to -dominate the demi-monde of Paris--“Wilhelm to-day successfully stormed -Le Chemin des Dames,” was the telegram that he sent to the Empress, in -imitation of those sent by his grandfather to his Augusta. _Le Chemin -des Dames!_--beyond a doubt his dream was to give France to his eldest, -England to his second, and Russia to the third of the litter. After -that, as he said to Mr. Gerard, he would turn his attention to America. - -That was the dream of this Bonaparte done in German silver, and now his -house is left unto him desolate--unto him whose criminality, sustained -by the criminal conceit of his subjects, left thousands of houses -desolate for evermore. - -But we are now in the Garden of Peace, whose sweet savour should not be -allowed to become rank by the mention of the name of the instigator of -the German butcheries. - -There is little under my eyes in this garden to remind me of one on the -Rhine where I spent a summer a good many years ago. Its situation was -ideal. The island of legends, Nonnenworth, was all that could be seen -from one of the garden-houses; and one of the windows in the front -was arranged in small squares of glass stained, but retaining their -transparency, in various colours--crimson, pink, dark blue, ultramarine, -and two degrees yellow. Through these theatrical mediums we were -exhorted to view the romantic island, so that we had the rare chance -of seeing Nonnenworth bathed in blood, or in flames of fire. It was -undoubtedly a great privilege, but I only availed myself of it once; -though our host, who must have looked through those glasses thousands of -times, was always to be found gazing through the flaming yellow at the -unhappy isle. - -From the vineyard nearer the house we had the finest view of the ruins -of the Drachenfels, and, on the other side of the Rhine, of Rolandseck. -Godesburg was farther away, but we used to drive through the lovely -avenue of cherry-trees and take the ferry to the hotel gardens where we -lunched. - -Another of the features of the great garden of our villa was a fountain -whose chief charm was found in an arrangement by which, on treading on -a certain slab of stone at the invitation of our host, the uninitiated -were met by a deluging squirt of water. - -This was the lighter side of hospitality; but it was at one time to be -found in many English gardens, one of the earliest being at our Henry's -Palace of Nonsuch. - -In another well-built hut there was the apparatus of a game which is -popular aboard ship in the Tropics: I believe it is called Bull; it -is certainly an adaptation of the real bull. There is a framework of -apertures with a number painted on each, the object of the player being -to throw a metal disc resembling a quoit into the central opening. -Another hut had a pole in the middle and cords with a ring at the end of -each suspended from above, and the trick was to induce the ring to catch -on to a particular hook in a set arranged round the pole. These were the -games of exercise; but the intellectual visitors had for their diversion -an immense globe of silvered glass which stood on a short pillar and -enabled one to get in absurd perspective a reflection of the various -parts of the garden where it was placed. This toy is very popular in -some parts of France, and I have heard that about sixty years ago it was -to be found in many English gardens also. It is a great favourite in the -German _lustgarten_. - -These are a few of the features of a private garden which may commend -themselves to some of my friends; but the least innocuous will never be -found within my castle walls. I would not think them worth mentioning -but for the fact that yesterday a visitor kept rubbing us all over with -sandpaper, so to speak, by talking enthusiastically about her visits to -Germany, and in the midst of the autumn calm in our garden, telling us -how beautifully her friend Von Rosche had arranged his grounds. She had -the impudence to point to one of the most impregnable of my “features,” - saying with a smile,-- - -“The Count would not approve of that, I'm afraid.” - -“I am so glad,” said Dorothy sweetly. “If I thought that there was -anything here of which he would approve, I should put on my gardening -boots and trample it as much out of existence as our relations are with -those contemptible counts and all their race.” - -And then, having found the range, I brought my heavy guns into action -and “the case began to spread.” - -I trust that I made myself thoroughly offensive, and when I recall some -of the things I said, my conscience acquits me of any shortcomings in -this direction. - -“You were very wise,” said Dorothy; “but I think you went too far when -you said. 'Good-bye, Miss Haldane.' I saw her wince at that.” - -“I knew that I would never have a chance of speaking to her again,” I -replied. - -“Oh, yes; but--Haldane--Haldane! If you had made it Snowden or MacDonald -it would not have been so bad; but Haldane!” - -“I said Haldane because I meant Haldane, and because Haldane is a -synonym for colossal impudence--the impudence cf a police-court attorney -defending a prostitute with whom he was on terms of disgusting intimacy. -What a trick it was to leave the War Office, out of which he knew he -would be turned, and then cajole his friend Asquith into giving him -a peerage and the Seals, so that he might have his pension of five -thousand pounds a year for the rest of his natural life! If that is to -be condoned, all that I can say is that we must revise all our notions -of political pettifogging. I forget at the moment how many retired Lord -Chancellors there are who are pocketing their pension, but have done -nothing to earn it.” - -“What, do you call voting through thick and thin with your party -nothing?” - -“I don't. That is how, what we call a sovereign to-day is worth only nine -shillings, and a man who got thirty shillings a week as a gardener only -gets three pounds now: thirty shillings in 1913 was mere than three -pounds to-day. And in England----” - -“Hush, hush. Remember, 'My country right or wrong.'” - -“I do remember. That is why I rave. When my country, right or wrong is -painted out and 'my party, right or wrong' substituted, isn't it time -one raved?” - -“You didn't talk in that strain when you wrote a leading article every -day for a newspaper.” - -“I admit it; but--but--well, things hadn't come to a head in those old -days.” - -“You mean that they had not come into your head, _mon vieux_, if you -will allow me to say so.” - -I did allow her to say so--she had said so before asking my leave, which -on the whole I admit is a very good way of saying things. - -To be really frank, I confess that I was very glad that the dialogue -ended here. I fancied the possibility of her having stored away in that -wonderful group of pigeon holes which she calls her memory, a memorandum -endorsed with the name of Campbell-Bannerman or a _dossier_ labelled -“Lansdowne.” For myself I recollect very well that a vote of the -representatives of the People had declared that Campbell-Bannerman -had left the country open to destruction by his failure to provide -an adequate supply of cordite. In the days of poor Admiral Byng such -negligence would have been quickly followed by an execution; but with -the politician it was followed by a visit to Buckingham Palace and a -decoration as a hero. When it was plain that Lord Lansdowne had made, -and was still making, a muddle of the South African War, he was promoted -to a more important post in the Government--namely, the Foreign Office. -With such precedents culled from the past, why should any one be -surprised to find the instigator of the Gallipoli gamble, whose -responsibility was proved by a Special Commission of Inquiry, awarded -the most important post next to that of the Prime Minister? - -Yes, on the whole I was satisfied to accept my Dorothy's smiling rebuke -with a smile; and the sequel of the incident showed me that I was wise -in this respect; for I found her the next day looking with admiring eyes -at our Temple. - -Our Temple was my masterpiece, and it was the “feature” which our -visitor had, without meaning it, commended so extravagantly when she had -assured us that her friend Count Von Bosche would not have approved of -it. - -“I think, my child, now that I come to think of it, that your -single-sentence retort respecting the value of the Count's possible -non-approval was more effective than my tirade about the vulgarity of -German taste in German gardens, especially that one at Honnef-on-Rhine, -where I was jocularly deluged with Rhine water. You know how to hit off -such things. You are a born sniper.” - -“Sniping is a woman's idea of war,” said Dorothy. - -“I don't like to associate women and warfare,” said I shaking my head. - -“That is because of your gentle nature, dear,” said she with all the -smoothness of a smoothing-iron fresh from a seven-times heated furnace. -“But isn't it strange that in most languages the word War is a noun -feminine?” - -“They were always hard on woman in those days,” said I vaguely. “But -they're making up for it now.” - -“What are you talking about?” she cried. “Why, they're harder than ever -on women in this country. Haven't they just insisted on enchaining them -with the franchise, with the prospect of seats in the House of Commons? -Oh, Woman--poor Woman!--poor, poor Woman--what have you done to deserve -this?” - - - - -CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH - -The Temple is one of the “features” which began to grow with great -rapidity in connection with the House Garden. And here let me say that, -in my opinion, one of the most fascinating elements of the House Garden -is the way in which its character develops. To watch its development is -as interesting as to watch the growth of a dear child, only it is never -wilful, and the child is--sometimes. There is no wilfulness in the -floral part: as I have already explained, the “dwarf habit” of the stock -prevents all ramping and every form of rebellion: but it is different -with the “features.” I have found that every year brings its suggestions -of development in many directions, and surely this constitutes the main -attractiveness of working out any scheme of horticulture. - -I have found that one never comes to an end in this respect; and I am -sure that this accounts for the great popularity of the House Garden, -in spite of its enemies having tried to abolish it by calling it Formal. -The time was when one felt it necessary to make excuses for it--Mr. -Robinson, one of the most eminent of its detractors, was, and still is, -I am happy to be able to say, the writer to whom we all apply for advice -in an emergency. He is Æsculapius living on the happiest terms with -Flora. - -But when we who are her devotees wish to build a Temple for her worship, -we don't consult Æsculapius: he is a physician, not an architect, and -Mr. Robinson has been trying to convince us for over twenty years that -an architect is not the person to consult, for he knows nothing about -the matter. Æsculapius is on the side of Nature, we are told, and he -has been assuring us that the architect is not; but in spite of all its -opponents, the garden of form and finish is the garden of to-day. Every -one who wishes to have a garden worth talking about--a garden to look -out upon from a house asks for a garden of form and finish. - -I am constantly feeing that I am protesting too much in its favour, -considering that it needs no apologist at this time of day, when, as I -have just said, opinion on its desirability is not divided, so I will -hasten to relieve myself of the charge of accusation by apology. Only -let me say that the beautiful illustrations to Mr. Robinson's volume -entitled _Garden Design and Architects' Gardens_--they are by Alfred -Parsons--go far, in my opinion, to prove exactly the opposite to what -they are designed to prove. We have pictures of stately houses and -of comparatively humble houses, in which we are shown the buildings -starting up straight out of the landscape, with a shaggy tree or group -of trees cutting off at a distance of only a few yards from the walls, -some of the most interesting architectural features; we have pictures of -mansions with a woodland behind them and a river flowing in front, and -of mansions in the very midst of trees, and looking at every one of them -we are conscious of that element of incongruity which takes away from -every sense of beauty. In fact, looking at the woodcuts, finely executed -as they are, we are forced to limit our observation to the architecture -of the houses only; for there is nothing else to observe. We feel as -if we were asked to admire an unfinished work--as if the owner of the -mansion had spent all his money on the building and so was compelled -to break off suddenly before the picture that he hoped to make of the -“place” was complete or approaching completeness. - -Mr. Robinson's strongest objection is to “clipping.” He regards with -abhorrence what he calls after Horace Walpole, “vegetable sculpture.” - Well, last year, being in the neighbourhood of one of the houses which -he illustrates as an example of his “natural” style of gardening, I -thought I should take the opportunity of verifying his quotations. -I visited the place, but when I arrived at what I was told was the -entrance, I felt certain that I had been misdirected, for I found myself -looking through a wrought-iron gate at an avenue bounded on both sides -with some of the most magnificent clipped box hedges I had ever seen. -Within I was overwhelmed with the enormous masses treated in the same -way. It was not hedges they were, but walls--massive fortifications, ten -feet high and five thick, and all clipped I I never saw such examples of -topiary work. To stand among these _bêtes noires_ of Mr. Robinson -made one feel as if one were living among the mastodons and other -monstrosities of the early world: the smallest suggested both in form -and bulk the Jumbo of our youth--no doubt it had a trunk somewhere, but -it was completely hidden. The lawn--at the bottom of which, by the way, -there stood the most imposing garden-house I had ever seen outside -the grounds of Stowe--was divided geometrically by the awful bodies of -mastodons, mammoths, elephants, and hippopotamuses, the effect being -hauntingly Wilsonian, Wagnerian, and nightmarish, so that I was glad to -hurry away to where I caught a glimpse of some geometrical flower -beds, with patterns delightfully worked in shades of blue--Lord Roberts -heliotrope, ageratum, and verbena. - -I asked the head-gardener, whom the war had limited to two assistants, -if he spent much time over the clipping, and he told me that it took two -trained men doing nothing else but clipping those walls for six weeks -out of every year! - -From what Mr. Robinson has written one gathers that he regards the -clipping of trees as equal in enormity to the clipping of coins--perhaps -even more so. If that is the case, it is lucky for those topiarists that -he is not in the same position as Sir Charles Mathews. - -And the foregoing is a faithful description of the “landscape” - around one of the houses illustrated in his book as an example of the -“naturalistic” style. - -But perhaps Mr. Robinson's ideas have become modified, as those of the -owner of the house must have done during the twenty-five years that have -elapsed since the publication of his book, subjecting Mr. Blomfield -(as he was then) and Mr. Inigo Triggs to a criticism whose severity -resembles that of the _Quarterly Review_ of a hundred years ago, or the -_Saturday_ of our boyhood. - -To return to my Temple, within whose portals I swear that I have said -my last word respecting the old battle of the styles, I look on its -erection as the first progeny of the matrimonial union of the house with -its garden. I have mentioned the mound encircled with flowering shrubs -at the termination of the lawn. I am unable to say what part was played -by this raised ground in the economy of the Norman Castle, but before -I had been looking at it for very long I perceived that it was clearly -meant to be the site of some building that, would be in keeping with the -design of the garden below it--some building in which one could sit and -obtain the full enjoyment of the floral beds which were now crying out -with melodious insistence for admiration. - -The difficulty was to know in what form the building should be cast. I -reckoned that I had a free choice in this matter. The boundary wall of -the Castle is, of course, free from all architectural trammels. I could -afford to ignore it. If the Keep or the Barbican had been within sight, -my freedom in this respect would have been curtailed to the narrowest -limits: I should have been compelled to make the Norman or the Decorated -the style, for anything else would have seemed incongruous in close -proximity to a recognised type; but under the existing conditions I saw -that the attempt to carry out in this place the Norman tradition would -result in something that would seem as great a mockery as the sham -castle near Bath. - -But I perceived that if I could not carry out the Norman tradition -I might adopt the eighteenth century tradition respecting a garden -building, and erect one of the classic temples that found favour with -the great garden makers of that period--something frankly artificial, -but eminently suggestive of the Italian taste which the designers had -acquired in Italy. - -I have wondered if the erection of these classical buildings in English -gardens did not seem very incongruous and artificial when they were -first brought before the eyes of the patron; and the conclusion that I -have come to is that they seemed as suitable to an English home as did -the pure Greek façade of the mansion itself, the fact being that there -is no English style of architecture. Italy gave us the handsomest -style for our homes, and when people were everywhere met with classical -façades--when the Corinthian pillar with, perhaps, its modified Roman -entablature, was to be seen in every direction, the classical garden -temple was accepted as in perfect harmony with its surroundings. So the -regular couplets of Dryden, Pope, and a score of lesser versifiers were -acclaimed as the most natural and reasonable form for the expression -of their opinions. Thus I hold that, however unenterprising the garden -designers were in being content to copy Continental models instead of -inventing something as original as Keats in the matter of form, the -modern garden designer has only to copy in order to produce--well, a -copy of the formality of their time. But if people nowadays do not wish -their gardens to reflect the tastes of their ancestors for the classical -tradition, they will be very foolish if they do not adopt something -better--when they find it. - -[Illustration: 0150] - -Of course I am now still referring to the garden out of which the -house should spring. The moment that you get free from the compelling -influence of the house, you may go as you please; and to my mind you -will be as foolish if you do not do something quite different from the -House Garden as you would be if you were to do anything different within -sight of the overpowering House--almost as foolish as the people who -made a beautiful fountain garden and then flung it at the head of that -natural piece of water, the Serpentine. - -My temple was to be in full view of the house, and I wished to maintain -the tradition of a certain period, so I drew out my plans accordingly. I -had space only for something about ten feet square, and I found out what -the simplest form of such a building would cost. It could be done in -stone for some hundreds of pounds, in deal for less than a fourth of -that sum. - -Both estimates were from well-known people with all the facilities for -turning out good work at the lowest figure of profit; but both estimates -made me heavy-hearted. I tried to make up my mind not to spend the rest -of my life in the state of the Children of Israel when their Temple was -swept away; but within six months I had my vision restored, and unlike -the old people who wept because the restoration was far behind the -original in glory, I rejoiced; for, finding that I could not afford -to have the structure in deal, I had it built of marble, and the cost -worked out most satisfactorily. In marble it cost me about a fourth of -the estimate in deal! - -I did it on the system adopted by the makers of the Basilica of St. Mark -at Venice. Those economical people built their walls of brick and -laid their marbles upon that. My collection of marbles was distinctly -inferior to theirs, but I flatter myself that it was come by more -honestly. The only piece of which I felt doubtful, not as regards -beauty, but respecting the honourable nature of its original acquiring, -was a fine slab, with many inlays. It was given to Augustus J. C. Hare -by the Commander of one of the British transports that returned from the -Black Sea and the Crimea in 1855, and it was originally in a church -near Balaclava. In the catalogue of the sale of Mr. Hare's effects at -Hurstmonceaux, the name of the British officer was given and the name of -his ship and the name of the church, but the rest is silence. I cannot -believe that that British officer would have been guilty of sacrilege; -but I do not know how many hands a thing like this should pass through -in order to lose the stain of sacrilege, so I don't worry over the -question of the morality of the transaction, any more than the devout -worshippers do beneath the mosaics of St. Mark--that greatest depository -of stolen goods in the world. - -All the rest of my coloured marbles that I applied to the brickwork of -my little structure came mostly from old mantelpieces and restaurant -tables, but I was lucky enough to alight upon quite a large number of -white Sicilian tiles, more than an inch thick, which were invaluable -to me, and a friendly stonemason gave me several yards of statuary -moulding: it must have cost originally about what I paid for my entire -building. - -It was a great pleasure to me to watch the fabric arise, which it -did like the towers of Ilium, to music--the music of the thrushes and -blackbirds and robins of our English landscape in the early summer when -I began my operations--they lasted just on a fortnight--and the splendid -colour-chorus of the borders. But what is a Temple on a hill without -steps? and what are steps without piers, and what are piers without -vases? - -All came in due time. I found an excellent quarry not too far away, and -from it I got several tons of stone that was easily shaped and squared, -and there is very little art needed to deal efficiently with such -monoliths as I had laid on the slope of the mound--the work occupied a -man and his boy just three days. The source of the piers is my secret; -but there they are with their stone vases to-day, and now from the -marble seat of the temple, thickly overspread with cushions, one can -overlook the parterres between the mound and the house, and feel no -need for the sunk garden which is the ambition of such as must be on the -crest of the latest wave of fashion. - - - - -CHAPTER THE TWELFTH - -Atheist Friswell has been wondering where he saw a mount like mine -crowned with just such a structure, and he has at last shepherded his -wandering memory to the place. I ventured to suggest the possibilities -of the island Scios, and Jack Heywood, the painter, who, though our -neighbour, still remains our friend, makes some noncompromising remark -about Milos “where the statues come from.” - -“I think you'll find the place in a picture-book called _Beauty Spots -in Greece_” remarked Mrs. Friswell. Dorothy is under the impression -that Friswell's researches in the classical lore of one Lemprière is -accountable for his notion that there is, or was, at one time in the -world a Temple with some resemblance to the one in which we were sitting -when he began to wonder. - -“Very likely,” said he, with a brutal laugh. “The temples on the hills -were sometimes dedicated to the sun--Helios, you know.” - -Of course we all knew, or pretended that we knew. - -“And what did your artful Christians do when they came upon such a -fane?” he inquired. - -“Pulled it down, I suppose; the early artful Christians had no more -sense of architectural or antiquarian beauty than the modern exponents -of the cult,” said Heywood. - -“They were too artful for that, those early Christian propagandists,” - said Friswell. “No, they turned to the noble Greek worshippers whom they -were anxious to convert, and cried, dropping their aspirates after the -manner of the moderns, 'dedicated to Elias, is it?' Quite so---Saint -Elias--he is one of our saints. That is how it comes that so many -churches on hills in the Near East have for their patron Saint Elias. -Who was he, I should like to know.” - -“I would do my best to withhold the knowledge from you,” said Dorothy. -“But was there ever really such a saint? There was a prophet, of course, -but that's not just the same.” - -“I should think not,” said Friswell. “The old prophets were the grandest -characters of which there is a record--your saints are white trash -alongside them--half-breeds. They only came into existence because of -the craving of humanity for pluralities of worship. The Church has found -in her saints the equivalents to the whole Roman theology.” - -“Mythology,” said I correctively. - -“There's no difference between the words,” he replied. - -“Oh, yes, my dear, there is,” said his wife. “There is the same -difference between theology and mythology as there is between convert -and pervert.” - -“Exactly the same difference,” he cried. “Exactly, but no greater. -Christian hagiology--what a horrid word!--is on all-fours with Roman -mythology. The women who used to lay flowers in the Temple of Diana -bring their lilies into the chapel of the Madonna. There are chapels -for all the saints, for they have endowed their saints with the powers -attributed to their numerous deities by the Greeks and the Romans. There -are enough saints to go round---to meet all the requirements of the most -freakish and exacting of district visitors. But the Jewish prophets were -very different from the mystical and mythical saints. They lived, and -you feel when you get in touch with them that you are on a higher plane -altogether.” - -“Have you found out where you saw that Temple on the mound over there, -and if you have, let us know the name of the god or the goddess or -saint or saintess that it was dedicated to, and I'll try to pick up a -Britannia metal figure cheap to put in the grove alongside the Greek -vase,” said I. - -He seemed in labour of thought: no one spoke for fear of interrupting -the course of nature. - -“Let me think,” he muttered. “I don't see why the mischief I should -associate a Greek Temple with Oxford Street, but I do--that particular -Temple of yours.” - -“If you were a really religious business man you might be led to -think of the City Temple, only it doesn't belong to the Greek Church,” - remarked Heywood. - -“Let me help you,” said the Atheist's wife; “think of Truslove and -Hanson, the booksellers. Did Arthur Rackham ever put a Temple into one -of his picture-books?” - -“After all, you may have gone on to Holborn--Were you in Batsford's?” - suggested Dorothy. - -“Don't bother about him,” said I. “What does it matter if he did once -see something like our Temple; he'll never see anything like it again, -unless----” - -“It may have been Buszards'--a masterpiece of Buszards,--pure -confectioners' Greek architecture--icing veined to look like marble,” - said Dorothy. - -“I have it---I knew I could worry it out if you gave me time,” cried -Friswell. - -“Which we did,” said I. “Well, whisper it gently in our ears.” - -“It was in a scene in a play at the Princess's Theatre,” he cried -triumphantly. “Yes, 1 recollect it distinctly--something just like your -masterpiece, only more slavishly Greek--the scene was laid in Rome, so -they would be sure to have it correct.” - -“What play was it?” Dorothy asked. - -“Oh, now you're asking too much,” he replied. “Who could remember the -name of a play after thirty or forty years? All that I remember is that -it was a thoroughly bad play with a Temple like yours in it. It was the -fading of the light that brought it within the tentacles of my memory.” - -“So like a man--to blame the dusk,” said his wife. - -“The twilight is the time for a garden--the summer twilight, like this,” - said Mr. Heywood. - -“The moonless midnight is the time for some gardens,” said Dorothy, who -is fastidious in many matters, though she did marry me. - -“The time for a garden was decided a long time ago,” said I--“as long -ago as the third chapter of Genesis and the eighth verse: 'They heard -the voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the -day.'” - - -“You say that with a last-word air--as much as to say 'what's good -enough for God is good enough for me,'” laughed Friswell. - -“I think that if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a -garden at the cool of the day,” said Mrs. Friswell gently. - -“There are some people who would fail to hear it at any time,” said -I, pointedly referring to Friswell. He gave a laugh. “What are you -guffawing at?” I cried with some asperity I trust. - -“Not at your Congregational platitudes,” he replied. “I was led to -smile when I remembered how the colloquial Bible which was compiled by -a Scotsman, treated that beautiful passage. He paraphrased it, 'The Lord -went oot in the gloamin' to hae a crack wi' Adam ower the garden gate.'” - -“I don't suppose he was thought irreverent,” said Dorothy. “He wasn't -really, you know.” - -“To take a step or two in the other direction,” said Mrs. Friswell; “I -wonder if Milton had in his mind any of the Italian gardens he must have -visited on his travels when he described the Garden of Eden.” - -“There's not much of an Italian garden in Milton's Eden,” said Dorothy, -who is something of an authority on these points. “But it is certainly -an Italian twilight that he describes in one place. Poor Milton! he -must have been living for many years in a perpetual twilight before 't -darkened into his perpetual night.” - -“You notice the influence of the hour,” said Heywood. “We have fallen -into a twilight-shaded vale of converse. This is the hour when people -talk in whispers in gardens like these.” - -“I dare say we have all done so in our time,” remarked some one with a -sentimental sigh that she tried in vain to smother. - -“Ah, God knew what He was about when He put a man and a woman into a -garden alone, and gave them an admonition,” said Friswell. “By the way, -one of the most remarkable bits of testimony to the scientific accuracy -of the Book of Genesis, seems to me to be the discovery, after many -years of conjecture and vague theorising, that man and woman were -originally one, so that the story of the formation of Eve by separating -from Adam a portion of his body is scientifically true. I don't suppose -that any of you good orthodox folk will take that in; but it is a fact -all the same.” - -“I will believe anything except a scientific fact,” said Dorothy. - -“And I will believe nothing else,” said Friswell. “The history of -mankind begins with the creation of Eve--the separation of the two-sexed -animal into two--meant a new world, a world worth writing about--a world -of love.” - -“Listen to him--there's the effect of twilight in a Garden of Peace for -you,” said I. “Science and the Book of Genesis, hitherto at enmity, are -at last reconciled by Atheist Friswell. What a triumph! What a pity that -Milton, who made his Archangel visit Adam and his bride and give them a -scientific lecture, did not live to learn all this!” - -“He would have given us a Nonconformist account of it,” said Mrs. -Friswell. “I wonder how much his Archangel would have known if Milton -had not first visited Charles Deodati.” - -There was much more to be said in the twilight on the subject of the -world of love--a world which seems the beginning of a new world to those -who love; and that was possibly why silence fell upon us and was only -broken by the calling of a thrush from among the rhododendrons and the -tapping of the rim of Heywood's empty pipe-bowl on the heel of his shoe. -There was so much to be said, if we were the people to say it, on the -subject of the new Earth which your lover knows to be the old Heaven, -that, being aware of the inadequacy of human speech, we were silent for -a long space. - -And when we began to talk again it was only to hark back from Nature to -the theatre, and, a further decadence still--the Gardens of the Stage. - -The most effective garden scene in my recollection is that in which -Irving and Ellen Terry acted when playing Wills' exquisite adaptation -of _King Renê's Daughter_, which he called _Iolanthe_. I think it was -Harker who painted it. The garden was outside a mediaeval castle, -and the way its position on the summit of a hill was suggested was an -admirable bit of stagecraft. Among the serried lines of pines there was -at first seen the faint pink of a sunset, and this gradually became -a glowing crimson which faded away into the rich blue of an Italian -twilight. But there was enough light to glint here and there upon the -armour of the men-at-arms who moved about among the trees. - -The parterre in the foreground was full of red roses, and I remember -that Mr. Ruskin, after seeing the piece and commenting upon the -_mise-en-scène_, said that in such a light as was on it, the roses of -the garden would have seemed black! - -This one-act play was brought on by Irving during the latter months -of the great run of _The Merchant of Venice_. It showed in how true -a spirit of loyalty to Shakespeare the last act, which, in nearly all -representations of the play, is omitted, on the assumption that with the -disappearance of Shylock there is no further element of interest in the -piece, was retained by the great manager. It was retained only for the -first few months, and it was delightfully played. The moonlit garden -in which the incomparable lines of the poet were spoken was of the true -Italian type, though there is nothing in the text of what is called -“local colour.” - -Juliet's garden on the same stage was not so definitely Italian as it -might have been. But I happen to know who were Irving's advisers. Among -them were two of the most popular of English painters, and if they had -had their own way Romeo would have been allowed no chance: he would have -been hidden by the clumps of yew, and juniper, and oleander, and ilex, -and pomegranate. A good many people who were present during the run of -_Romeo and Juliet_ were very much of the opinion that if this had taken -place it would have been to the advantage of all concerned. Mr. Irving, -as he was then, was not the ideal Romeo of the English playgoer. But -neither was the original Romeo, who was, like the original Paolo, a man -of something over forty. - -I have never seen it pointed out that a Romeo of forty would be quite -consistent with the Capulet tradition, for Juliet's father in the -play was quite an elderly man, whereas the mother was a young woman of -twenty-eight. As for Juliet's age, it is usually made the subject of a -note of comment to the effect that in the warm south a girl matures so -rapidly that she is marriageable at Juliet's age of thirteen, whereas -in the colder clime of England it would be ridiculous to talk of one -marrying at such an age. - -There can be no doubt that in these less spacious days the idea of a -bride of thirteen would not commend itself to parents or guardians, but -in the sixteenth century, twelve or thirteen was regarded as the right -age for the marriage of a girl. If she reached her sixteenth birthday -remaining single, she was ready to join in the wail of Jephtha's -Daughter. In a recently published letter written by Queen Elizabeth, -who, by the way, although fully qualified to take part in that chorale, -seemed to find a series of diplomatic flirtations to be more satisfying -than matrimony, she submitted the names of three heiresses as ripe for -marriage, and none of them had passed the age of thirteen. The Reverend -John Knox made his third matrimonial venture with a child of fifteen. -Indeed, one has only to search the records of any family of the -sixteenth or seventeenth century to be made aware of the fact that -Shakespeare's Juliet was not an exceptionally youthful bride. In Tenbury -Church there is a memorial of “Ioyse, d. of Thos. Actone of Sutton, -Esquire.” She was the wife of Sir Thomas Lucy, whom she married at the -age of twelve. If any actor, however, were to appear as a forty-two year -Romeo and with a Juliet of thirteen, and a lady-mother of twenty-eight, -he would be optimistic indeed if he should hope for a long run for his -venture. - -Of course with the boy Juliets of the Globe Theatre, the younger they -were the better chance they would have of carrying conviction with them. -A Juliet with a valanced cheek would not be nice, even though she were -“nearer heaven by the attitude of a chopine” than one whose face was -smooth. - -I think that Irving looked his full age when he took it upon him to play -Romeo; but to my mind he made a more romantic figure than most -Romeos whom I have seen. But every one who joined in criticising the -representation seemed unable to see more of him than his legs, and these -were certainly fantastic. I maintained that such people began at the -wrong end of the actor: they should have begun at the head. And this was -the hope of Irving himself. He had the intellect, and I thought his legs -extremely intellectual. - -I wonder he did not do some padding to bring his calves into the market, -and make--as he would have done--a handsome profit out of the play. -In the old days of the Bateman Management of the Lyceum, he was never -permitted to ignore the possibilities of making up for deficiencies -of Nature. In the estimation of the majority of theatre-goers, the -intellect of an actor will never make up for any neglect of the -adventitious aid of “make-up.” When _Eugene Aram_ was to be produced, -it was thought advisable to do some padding to make Irving presentable. -There was a clever expert at this form of expansion connected with the -theatre; he was an Italian and, speaking no English, he was forced into -an experiment in explanation in his own language. He wished to enforce -the need for a solid shape to fit the body, rather than a patchwork of -padding. In doing so he had to made constant use of the word _corpo_, -and as none of his hearers understood Italian, they thought that he was -giving a name to the contrivance he had in his mind; so when the thing -passed out of the mental stage into the actor's dressing-room, it -was alluded to as the corpo. The name seemed a happy one and it had a -certain philological justification; for several people, including the -dresser, thought that corpo was a contraction for corporation, and in -the slang of the day, that meant an expansion of the chest a little -lower down. - -Mrs. Bateman, with whom and with whose family I was intimate, told me -this long after the event, and, curiously enough, it arose out of a -conversation going on among some visitors to the house in Ensleigh -Street where Mrs. Bateman and her daughters were living. I said I -thought the most expressive line ever written was that in the _Inferno_ -which ended the exquisite Francesca episode:-- - - “E caddi come un corpo morto cade.” - -Mrs. Bateman and her daughter Kate (Mrs. Crowe) looked at each other and -smiled. I thought that they had probably had the line quoted to them _ad -nauseam_, and I said so. - -“That is not what we were smiling at,” said Mrs. Bateman. “It was at the -recollection of the word _corpo._” - -And then she told me the foregoing. - -Only a short time afterwards in the same house she gave me a bit of -information of a much more interesting sort. - -I had been at the first performance of Wills' play _Ninon_ at the -Adelphi theatre, and was praising the acting of Miss Wallis and Mr. -Fernandez. When I was describing one scene, Mrs. Bateman said,-- - -“I recollect that scene very well; Mr. Wills read that play to us when -he was writing _Charles I._; but there was no part in it strong enough -for Mr. Irving, He heard it read, however, and was greatly taken with -some lines in it--so greatly in fact that Mr. Wills found a place for -them in _Charles I._ They are the lines of the King's upbraiding of -the Scotch traitor, beginning, 'I saw a picture of a Judas once.' Some -people thought them among the finest in the play.” - -I said that I was certainly among them. - -That was how they made up a play which is certainly one of the most -finished dramas in verse of the latter half of the nineteenth century. - -It was Irving himself who told me something more about the same play. -The subject had been suggested to Wills and he set about it with great -fervour. He brought the first act to the Lyceum conclave. It opened in -the banqueting hall of some castle, with a score of the usual cavaliers -having the customary carouse, throwing about wooden goblets, and tossing -off bumpers between the verses of some stirring songs of the type -of “Oh, fill me a beaker as deep as you please,” leading up to the -unavoidable brawl and the timely entrance of the King. - -“It was exactly the opposite to all that I had in my mind,” Irving -told me, “and I would have nothing to do with it. I wanted the domestic -Charles, with his wife and children around him, and I would have nothing -else.” - -Happily he had his own way, and with the help of the fine lines -transferred from _Ninon_, the play was received with acclamation, and, -finely acted as it is now by Mr. H. B. Irving and his wife, it never -fails to move an audience. - -I think it was John Clayton who was the original Oliver Cromwell. I was -told that his make-up was one of the most realistic ever seen. He was -Cromwell--to the wart! Some one who came upon him in his dressing-room -was lost in admiration of the perfection of the picture, and declared -that the painter should sign it in the corner, “John Clayton, pinx.” But -perhaps the actor and artist was Swinburne. - -[Illustration: 0168] - -Only one more word in the Bateman connection. The varying fortunes of -the family are well known--how the Bateman children made a marvellous -success for a tune--how the eldest, Kate, played for months and years -in _Leah_, filling the treasury of every theatre in England and -America--how when the Lyceum was at the point of closing its odors, -_The Bells_ rang in an era of prosperity for all concerned; but I don't -suppose that many people know' that Mrs. Bateman, the wife of “The -Colonel,” was the author of several novels which she wrote for -newspapers at one of the “downs” that preceded the “ups” in her life. - -And Compton Mackenzie is Mrs. Bateman's grandson! - -And Fay Compton is Compton Mackenzie's youngest sister. - -There is heredity for you. - - - - -CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH - -It was melancholy--but Atheist Friswell alone was to blame for it--that -we should sit out through that lovely evening and talk about tawdry -theatricals, and that same tawdriness more than a little musty through -time. If Friswell had not begun with his nonsense about having seen my -Temple somewhere down Oxford Street we should never have wandered from -the subject of gardens until we lost ourselves among the wings of the -Lyceum and its “profiles” of its pines in _Iolanthe_, and its “built” - yews and pomegranates in _Romeo and Juliet_. But among the perfume of -the roses surrounding us, with an occasional whiff of the lavender mound -and a gracious breath like that of - - “The sweet South - - That breathes upon a bank of violets - - Giving and taking odours,” - -we continued talking of theatres until the summer night was reeking with -the smell of sawdust and oranges, to say nothing of the fragrance of -the _poudre de ninon_ of the stalls, wafted over opera wraps and -diamond-studded shirt-fronts--diamond studs, when just over the -glimmering marble of my temple the Evening Star was glowing! - -But what had always been a mystery to Friswell as the extraordinary lack -of judgment on Irving's part in choosing his plays. Had he ever made a -success since he produced that adaptation of _Faust?_ - -Beautifully staged and with some splendid moments due to the genius of -the man himself and the never-failing charm of the actress with whom he -was associated in all, yet no play worth remembering was produced at -the Lyceum during that management. _Faust_ made money, as it always has -since the days of Marlowe; but all those noisy scenes and meaningless -moments on the misty mountains--only alliteration's artful aid can deal -adequately with such digressions from the story of Faust and Gretchen -which was all that theatregoers, even of the better class, who go -to tire pit, wanted--seemed dragged into the piece without reason or -profit. To be sure, pages and pages of Goethe's _Faust_ are devoted to -his attempt to give concreteness to abstractions. (That was Friswell's -phrase; and I repeat it for what it is worth). But in the original all -these have a meaning at the back of them; but Irving only brought them -on to abandon them after a line or two. The hope to gain the atmosphere -of the weird by means of a panorama of clouds and mountain peaks -may have been realised so far as some sections of the audience were -concerned; but such a manager as Henry Irving should have been above -trying for such cheap effects. - -_Faust_ made money, however, and helped materially to promote the -formation of the Company through which country clergymen and daily -governesses in the provinces hoped to advance the British Drama and earn -20 per cent, dividends. - -I was at the first night of every play produced at the Lyceum for over -twenty years, and I knew that Irving never fell short of the highest -and the truest possible conception of any part that he attempted. At his -best he was unapproachable. It was not the actor who failed, when -there was failure; it was the play that failed. Only one marvellously -inartistic feature was in the adaptation of _The Courier of Lyons_. He -assumed that the sole way by which identification of a man is possible -is by his appearance--that the intonation of his voice counts -for nothing whatsoever. He acted in the dual rôle of Dubose and -Lesurges--the one a gentle creature with a gentle voice, the other a -truculent ruffian who jerked out his words hoarsely--the very antithesis -to the mild gentleman in voice, in gait, and in general demeanour, -though closely resembling him in features and appearance. The impression -given by this representation was that any one who, having heard Dubose -speak, would mistake Lesurges for him must be either stone-deaf or -an idiot. But each of the parts was finely played; and the real old -stage-coach arriving with its team smoking like Sheffield, helped to -make a commonplace melodrama interesting. - -Personally I do not think that he was justified in trying to realise at -the close of the trial scene in _The Merchant of Venice_, the tableau of -Christ standing mute and patient among the mockers. It was an attempt to -obtain by suggestion some pity and sympathy for an infamous and inhuman -scoundrel. In that pictorial moment Shylock the Jew was made to pose as -Christ the Jew. - -Mrs. Friswell had not seen Irving's Shylock, but she expressed her -belief that Shylock was on the whole very badly treated; and Dorothy was -ready to, affirm that Antonio was lacking in those elements that go to -the composition of a sportsman. He should not have wriggled out of his -bargain by the chicanery of the law. - -“They were a bad lot, and that's a fact,” I ventured to say. - -“They were,” acquiesced Friswell. “And if you look into the history -of the Jews, they were also a bad lot; but among them were the most -splendid men recorded as belonging to any race ever known on this earth; -and I'm not sure that Irving wasn't justified in trying to get his -audiences to realise in that last moment something of the dignity of the -Hebrew people.” - -“He would have made a more distinct advance in that direction if he had -cut out the 'business' of stropping his knife a few minutes earlier, 'To -cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there,'” I remarked. - -“If he had done that Shakespeare would not have had the chance of his -pun--the cheapest pun in literature--and it would not be like the author -to have neglected that,” said Mrs. Friswell. - -They all seemed to know more of the play than I gave them credit for -knowing. - -It was Heywood who inquired if I remembered another of Irving's plays at -the close of which a second greatly misjudged character had appealed for -sympathy by adopting the same pose. - -Of course I did--I remembered it very distinctly. It was in _Peter the -Great_, that the actor, waiting with sublime resignation to hear the -heart-rending death-shriek of his son whom he had condemned to drink -a cup of cold poison, is told by a hurrying messenger that his -illegitimate child has just died--then came the hideous shriek, and the -actor, with his far-away look of patient anguish, spoke his words,-- - -“Then I am childless!” - -And the curtain fell. - -He appealed for sympathy on precisely the same grounds as were -suggested by the prisoner at the bar who had killed his father with a -hatchet, and on being convicted by the jury and asked by the judge if -he could advance any plea whereby the sentence of death should not be -pronounced upon him, said he hoped that his lordship would not forget -that he was an orphan. - -In this drama the first act was played with as much jingling of -sleigh-bells as took place in another and rather better known piece in -the repertoire of the same actor. - -But whatever were its shortcomings, _Peter the Great_ showed that poor -Lawrence Irving could write, and write well, and that he might one day -give to the English theatre a great drama. - -Irving was accused of neglecting English authors; but the accusation was -quite unjust. He gave several of them a chance. There was, of course, -W. G. Wills, who was a true dramatist, and showed it in those plays to -which I have referred. But it must not be forgotten that he produced a -play by Mr. H. D. Traill and Mr. Robert Hitchens, and another by Herman -Merrivale; Mr. J. Comyns Carr took in hand the finishing of _King -Arthur_, begun by Wills, and made it ridiculous, and helped in -translating and adapting _Madame Sans Gêne_. Might not Lord Tennyson -also be called an English author? and were not his three plays, _Queen -Mary, The Cup, and Bechet_ brought out at the Lyceum? Irving showed -me how he had made the last-named playable, and I confess that I was -astonished. There was not a single page of the book remaining untouched -when he had done with it. Speech after speech was transferred from one -act to another, and the sequence of the scenes was altered, before the -drama was made possible. But when he had finished with it _Bechet_ -was not only possible and playable, it was the noblest and the best -constructed drama in verse that the stage had seen for years. - -I asked him what Lord Tennyson had said about this chopping and -changing; but he did not give me a verbatim account of the poet's -greeting of his offspring in its stage dress--he only smiled as one -smiles under the influence of a reminiscence of something that is better -over. - -When he went to Victorien Sardou for a new play and got _Robespierre_, -Irving got the worst thing that he had produced up to that date; but -when he went a second time and got _Dante_, he got something worse -still. Sir Arthur Pinero's letter acknowledging the debt incurred by the -dramatists of England to M. Sardou for showing them how a play should be -written was a masterpiece of irony. - -The truth is that Irving was the greatest of English actors, and he was -at his best only when he was interpreting the best. When he was acting -Shakespeare he was supreme. In scenes of passion he differed from most -actors. They could show a passion in the hands of a man, he showed the -man in the hands of a passion. And what actor could have represented -Corporal Brewster in _Waterloo_ as Irving did? - -About the changes that we veterans have seen in the stage during the -forty years of our playgoing, we agree that one of the most remarkable -is the introduction of parsons and pyjamas, and of persons with a past. -All these glories of the modern theatre were shut out from the theatres -of forty years ago. When an adaptation of _Dora_ by the author of -_Fedora_ and _Theodora_ was made for the English stage under the name -of _Diplomacy_, the claim that the Countess with a past had upon the -Diplomatist who is going to marry--really marry--another woman, was -turned into a claim that she had “nursed him through a long illness.” - The censor of those days thought that that was quite as far as any one -should go in that direction. It was assumed that _La Dame aux Camélias_ -could never be adapted without being offensive to a pure-minded English -audience. I think that _A Clerical Error_ was the first play in which a -clergyman of the Church of England was given the entrée to a theatre -in London. To be sure, there were priests of the Church of Rome in Dion -Roufcicault's Irish plays, but they were not supposed to count. I heard -that Mr. Pigott, the Censor, only passed the parson in _A Clerical -Error_ on the plea of the young nurse for something equally forbidden, -in _Midshipman Easy_, that “it was a very little one.” But from that day -until now we have had parsons by the score, ladies wearing camellias and -little else, by the hundred. As for the pyjama drama, I don't suppose -that any manager would so much as read a play that had not this duplex -garment in one scene. I will confess that I once wrote a story for -_Punch_ with a pyjama chorus in it. If it was from this indiscretion -that a manager conceived the idea of a ballet founded on the same -costume I have something to answer for. - -But in journalism and literature a corresponding change has come about, -only more recently. It is not more than ten or twelve years since -certain words have enjoyed the liberty of the press. In a police-court -case the word that the ruffian in the dock hurled at a policeman was -represented thus--“d----n,” telling him to go to “h----” no respectable -newspaper would ever put in the final letter. - -But now we have had the highest examples of amalgamated newspapers -printing the name of the place that was to be found in neither gazette -nor gazetteer, in bold type at the head of a column, and that too in -connection with the utterance of a Prime Minister. As for the d----n of -ten years ago, no one could have believed that Bob Acres' thoughtless -assertion that “damns have had their day,” should be so luridly -disproved. Why, they have only now come into their inheritance. This -is the day of the damn. It occupies the _Place aux Dames_ of Victorian -times; and now one need not hope to be able to pick up a paper or a -book that has not most of its pages sprinkled with damns and hells as -plentifully as a devil is sprinkled with cayenne. I am sure that in the -cookery books of our parents the treatment of a devilled bone would not -be found, or if the more conscientious admitted it, we should find it -put, “how to cook a d--------bone,” or, “another way,” as the cookery -book would put it more explicitly, “a d--------d bone.” - -“It is satisfactory to learn that the Church which so long enjoyed the -soul right to the property in these words, has relinquished its claim -and handed over the title deeds of the freehold, with all the patronage -that was supposed to go with it,” said Friswell. “I read in the papers -the other day that the Archbishop had received the report of the -Committee he appointed to inquire into the rights of both words, and -this recommended the abolition of both words in the interpretation -accepted for them for centuries in religious communities; and in future -damnation is to be taken to mean only something that does not commend -itself to all temperaments, and hell is no more than a picturesque but -insanitary dwelling.” - -“I read something like that the other day,” said Dorothy. “But surely -they have not gone so far as you say.” - -“They have gone to a much more voluminous distance, I assure you,” said -he. “It is to enable us all to say the Athanasian Creed without our -tongue in our cheek. Quicunque vult may repeat 'Qui-cunque Vult' with a -full assurance that nothing worth talking about will happen.” - -“All the Bishops' Committees in the world cannot rob us Englishmen of -our heritage in those words,” I cried, feeling righteously angry at the -man's flippancy. “If they were to take that from us, what can they give -us in its place--tell me that?” - -“Oh, there is still one word in the same connection that they have been -afraid to touch,” said he cheerfully. “Thank Heaven we have still got -that to counteract any tendency of our language to become anæmic.” - - - - -CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH - -I had been practically all my life enjoying gardens of various kinds, -but I had given attention to their creations without giving a thought to -their creation; I had taken the gifts of Flora, I would have said if I -had been writing a hundred years ago, without studying the features or -the figure of the goddess herself. If I were hard pressed for time and -space I would say directly that I lived among flowers, but knew nothing -of gardens. I had never troubled myself to inquire into the details of -a garden's charm. I had watched gardeners working and idling, mowing -and watering, tying up and cutting down, but I had never had a chance of -watching a real gardener making a garden. - -It is generally assumed that the first gardener that the world has known -was Adam. A clergyman told me so with the smile that comes with the -achievement of a satisfactory benefice--the indulgent smile of the -higher criticism for the Book of Genesis. But people who agree with that -assumption cannot have read the Book with the attention it deserves, -or they would have seen that it was the Creator of all Who planted the -first garden, and there are people alive to-day who are ready to affirm -that He worked conscientiously on the lines laid down by Le Notre. Most -gardeners whom I have seen at work appeared to me to be well aware -of the fact that the garden was given to man as a beatitude, and that -agriculture came later and in the form of a Curse; and in accordance -with this assurance they decline to labour in such a way as to make the -terms of the Curse apply to themselves. If they wipe their brows with -their shirt-sleeve, it is only because that is the traditional movement -which precedes the consulting of their watch to see if that five minutes -before the striking of the stable clock for the dinner hour will allow -of their putting on their coats. - -A friend of mine who had been reading Darwin and Wallace and Lyell -and Huxley and the rest of them, greatly to the detriment of his -interpretation of some passages in the Pentateuch, declared that the -record of the incident of the Garden Designer in the first chapters of -Genesis, being unable to do anything with his gardener and being obliged -(making use of a Shakespearian idiom) to fire him out, showed such a -knowledge of the trade, that, Darwin or no Darwin, he would accept the -account of the transaction without reservation. - -The saying that God sent food but the devil sent cooks may be adapted to -horticulture, as a rule, 1 think; but it should certainly not be applied -indiscriminately. The usual “jobber” is a man from whom employers expect -a great deal but get very little that is satisfactory. That is because -employers are unreasonable. The ordinary “working gardener” does not -think, because he is not paid to think: he does not get the wages of -a man who is required to use his brain. When one discovers all that a -gardener should know, and learns that the average wage of the trade -is from one pound to thirty shillings a week, the unreasonableness of -expecting a high order of intelligence to be placed at your service for -such pay will be apparent. - -Of course a “head” at an establishment where he is called a “curator” - and has half a dozen assistants, gets a decent salary and fully earns -it; but the pay of the greater number of the men who call themselves -gardeners is low out of all proportion to what their qualifications -should be. - -Now this being so, is the improvement to come by increasing the wages of -the usual type of garden jobber? I doubt it. My experience leads me to -believe very strongly in the employer's being content with work only, -and in his making no demand for brains or erudition from the man to -whom he pays twenty-five shillings a week--pre-war rates, of course: -the war-time equivalent would, of course, be something like £2 5s.--the -brains and erudition should be provided by himself. The employer or some -member of his family should undertake the direction of the work and ask -for the work only from the man. - -I know that the war days were the means of developing this system beyond -all that one thought possible five or six years ago; and of one thing I -am sure, and this is that no one who has been compelled to “take up” his -own garden will ever go back to the old way, the leading note of which -was the morning grumble at the inefficiency of the gardener, and the -evening resolution to fire him out. The distinction between exercise and -work has, within the past few fateful years, been obliterated; and -it has become accepted generally that to sweat over the handle of a -lawnmower is just as ennobling as to perspire for over after over at -a bowling crease; and that the man who comes in earth-stained from his -allotment, is not necessarily the social inferior of the man who carries -away on his knees a sample of the soil of the football field. There may -be a distinction between the work and the play; but it is pretty much -the same as the difference between the Biblical verb to sweat and -the boudoir word to perspire. The pores are opened by the one just as -healthfully as by the other. And in future I am pretty sure that we -shall all sweat and rarely perspire. - -I need not give any of the “instances” that have come under my notice of -great advantage accruing to the garden as well as to the one who gardens -without an indifferent understudy--every one who reads this book is in a -position to supply such an omission. I am sure that there is no country -town or village that cannot mention the name of some family, a member -or several members of which have been hard at work raising flowers or -vegetables or growing fruit, with immediately satisfactory results, and -a prospect of something greatly in advance in the future. - -I am only in a position to speak definitely on behalf of the working -proprietor, but I am certain that the daughters of the house who have -been working so marvellously for the first time in their lives, at the -turning out of munitions, taking the place of men in fields and -byres, and doing active duties in connection with hospitals, huts, and -canteens, will not now be content to go back to their tennis and teas -and “districts” as before. They will find their souls in other and more -profitable directions, and it is pretty certain that the production of -food will occupy a large number of the emancipated ones. We shall have -vegetables and fruit and eggs in such abundance as was never dreamt of -four years ago. Why, already potato crops of twelve tons to the acre are -quite common, whereas an aggregate of eight and nine tons was considered -very good in 1912. We all know the improvement that has been brought -about in regard to poultry, in spite of the weathercockerel admonition -of the Department of the Government, which one month sent out a million -circulars imploring all sorts and conditions of people to keep poultry, -and backed this up with a second million advising the immediate -slaughter of all fowls who had a fancy for cereals as a food; the others -were to be fed on the crumbs that fell from the master's table, but if -the master were known to give the crumbs to birds instead of eating -them himself or making them into those poultices, recommended by another -Department that called them puddings, he would be prosecuted. Later -on we were to be provided with a certain amount of stuff for pure bred -fowls, in order that only the purest and best strains should be kept; -but no provision in the way of provisions was made for the cockerels! -The cockerels were to be discouraged, but the breeding of pure fowls was -to be encouraged! - -It took another million or so of buff Orpmgton circulars to explain -just what was meant by the Department, and even then it needed a -highly-trained intelligence to explain the explanation. - -[Illustration: 0186] - -When we get rid of these clogs to industry known as Departments, we -shall, I am sure, all work together to the common good, in making -England a self-supporting country, and the men and women of England a -self-respecting people, and in point of health an A 1 people instead of -the C 3 into which we are settling down complacently. The statistics of -the grades recently published appeared to me to be the greatest cause -for alarm that England has known for years. And the worst of the matter -is that when one asks if a more ample proof of decadence has ever been -revealed, people smile and inquire if the result of the recent visits -of the British to France and Italy and Palestine and Mesopotamia suggest -any evidence of decadence. They forget that it was only the A classes -that left England; only the A classes were killed or maimed; the lower -grades remained at home with their wives in order that the decadent -breed might be carried on with emphasised decadence. - -If I were asked in what direction one should look for the salvation -of the race from the rush into Avernus toward which we have been -descending, I would certainly say,-- - -“The garden and the allotment only will arrest our feet on the downward -path.” - -If the people of England can throw off the yoke of the Cinema and take -to the spade it may not yet be too late to rescue them from the abyss -toward which they are sliding. - -And it is not merely the sons who must be saved, the daughters must be -taken into account in this direction; and when I meet daily the scores -of trim and shapely girls with busts of Venus and buskins of Diana, -walking--_vera incessu patuit dea_--as if the land belonged to -them--which it does--I feel no uneasiness with regard to the women with -whom England's future rests. If they belong to the land, assuredly the -land belongs to them. - -But the garden and not the field is the place for our girls. We know -what the women are like in those countries where they work in the fields -doing men's work. We have seen them in Jean François Millet's pictures, -and we turn from them with tears. - - “Women with labour-loosened knees - - And gaunt backs bowed with servitude.” - -We do not wish to see them in England. I have seen them in Italy, in -Switzerland, and on the Boer farms in, South Africa. I do not want to -see them in England. - -Agriculture is for men, horticulture for women. A woman is in her right -place in a garden. A garden looks lovelier for her presence. What an -incongruous object a jobbing gardener in his shirt-sleeves and filthy -cap seems when seen against a background of flowers! I have kept out of -my garden for days in dread of coming upon the figure which I knew -was lurking there, spending his time looking out for me and working -feverishly when he thought I was coming. - -But how pleasantly at home a girl in her garden garb appears, whether on -the rungs of a ladder tying up the roses, or doing some thinning out -on a too rampant border! There should be no work in a garden beyond her -powers--that is, of course, in a one-gardener garden--a one-greenhouse -garden. She has no business trying to carry a tub with a shrub weighing -one hundred and fifty pounds from one place to another; but she can -wheel a brewer's or a coalman's sack barrow with two nine-inch wheels -with two hundredweight resting on it for half a mile without feeling -weary. No garden should be without such a vehicle. One that I bought -ten years ago from a general dealer has enabled me to superannuate -the cumbersome wheelbarrow. You require to lift the tub into the -wheelbarrow, but the other does the lifting when you push the iron -guard four inches under the staves at the bottom. As for that supposed -bugbear--the carting of manure, it should not exist in a modern garden. -A five-shilling tin of fertiliser and a few sacks of Wakeley's hop -mixture will be enough for the borders of a garden of an acre, unless -you aim at growing everything to an abnormal size. But you must know -what sort of fertilising every bed requires. - -I mention these facts because we read constantly of the carting of -manure being beyond the limits of a girl-gardener's strength, to say -nothing of the distasteful character of the job. The time is coming when -there will be none of the old-fashioned stable-sweepings either for the -garden or the field, and I think we shall get on very well without it, -unless we wish to grow mushrooms. - -The only other really horrid job that I would not have my girl face is -pot-washing. This is usually a winter job, because, we are told, summer -is too busy a time in the garden to allow of its being done except when -the ice has to be broken in the cistern and no other work is possible. -But why should the pots be washed out of doors and in cold vater? If -you have a girl-gardener, why should you not give her the freedom of the -scullery sink where the hot water is laid on? There is no hardship in -washing a couple of hundred pots in hot water and _in_ a warm scullery -on the most inclement day in January. - -The truth is that there exists a garden tradition, and it originated -with men who had neither imagination nor brains, and people would have -us believe that it must be maintained--that frogs and toads should be -slain and that gardener is a proper noun of the masculine gender--that -manure must be filthy and that a garden should never look otherwise than -unfinished at any time of the year--that radiation is the same as frost, -and that watering should be done regularly and without reference to the -needs of the individual plants. - -Lady Wolseley has done a great deal toward giving girls the freedom of -the garden. She has a small training ground on the motor road between -Lewes and Eastbourne. Of course it is not large enough to pay its way, -and I am told that in order to realise something on the produce, the -pony cart of a costermonger in charge of two of the young women goes -into Lewes laden with vegetables for sale. I have no doubt that the -vegetables are of the highest grade, but I am afraid that if it -becomes understood that the pupils are to be trained in the arts of -costermongery the prestige of her college, as it has very properly been -called by Lady Wolseley, will suffer. - -What I cannot understand is why, with so admirable a work being done -at that place, it should not he subsidised by the State. It may be, -however, that Lady Wolseley has had such experience of the way in -which the State authorities mismanage almost everything they handle, as -prevents her from moving in this direction. The waste, the incompetence, -and the arrogance of all the Departments that sprang into existence with -the war are inconceivable. I dare say that Lady Wolseley has seen enough -during the past four years to convince her that if once the “State” had -a chance of putting a controlling finger upon one of the reins of the -college pony it would upset the whole apple-cart. The future of so -valuable an institution should not be jeopardised by the intrusion of -the fatal finger of a Government Department. The Glynde College should -be the Norland Institution of the nursery of Flora. - - - - -CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH - -It was when a gardener with whom I had never exchanged a cross word -during the two years he was with me assured me that work was not work -but slavery in my garden--he had one man under him and appealed to me -for a second--that I made my apology to him and allowed him to take -unlimited leave of me and his shackles. He had been with me for over two -years, and during all this time the garden had been going from bad to -worse. At the end of his bondage it was absolutely deplorable. At no -time had we the courage to ask any visitor to walk round the grounds. - -And yet the man knew the Latin name of every plant and every flower from -the cedar on the lawn to the snapdragon--he called it antirrhinum--upon -the wall; but if he had remained with me much longer there would have -been nothing left for him to give a name to, Latin or English. - -I took over the garden and got in a boy to do the pot-washing at six -shillings a week, and a fortnight later I doubled his wages, so vast -a change, or rather, a promise of change, as was shown by the place. -Within a month I was paying him fifteen shillings, and within six -months, eighteen. He was an excellent lad, and in due time his industry -was rewarded by the hand of our cook. I parted with him reluctantly at -the outbreak of the war, though owing to physical defects he was never -called up. - -It was when I was thrown on my own resources after the strain of -leave-taking with my slave-driven professor that I acquired the secret -of garden design which I have already revealed--namely, the multiplying -of “features” within the garden space. - -It took time for me to carry out my plans, for I was very far from -seeing, as a proper garden designer would have done in a glance, how the -ground lent itself to “features” in various directions; and it was -only while I was working at one part that the possibilities of others -suggested themselves to me. It was the incident of my picking up in -a stonemason's yard for a few shillings a doorway with a shaped -architrave, that made me think of shutting off the House Garden, which -I had completed the previous year, from the rest. I got this work done -quite satisfactorily by the aid of a simple balustrade on each side. -Here there was an effective entrance to a new garden, where before -nothing would grow owing to the overshadowing by the sycamores beyond my -mound. My predecessor took refuge in a grove of euonyma, behind which -he artfully concealed the stone steps leading to the Saxon terrace. This -was one of the “features” of his day--the careful concealing of such -drawbacks in the landscape as stone steps. Rut as I could not see that -they were after all a fatal blot that should put an end to all hope to -make anything of the place, I pulled away the masses of euonyma, and -turned the steps boldly round, adding piers at the foot. - -Here then was at my command a space of forty feet square, walled in, -and in the summer-shade of the high sycamores, and the winter-shade of a -beautifully-shaped and immense deciduous oak. And what was I to do with -it? - -Before I left the interrogatory ground I saw with great clearness the -reflection of the graceful foliage in a piece of water. That was just -what was needed at the place, I was convinced--a properly puddled Sussex -dew-pond such as Gilbert White's swallows could hardly resist making -their winter quarters as the alternative to that long and tedious trip -to South Africa. The spot was clearly designed by Nature as a basin. On -three sides it had boundaries of sloping mounds, and I felt myself equal -to the business of completing the circle so that the basin would be in -its natural place. - -I consulted my builder as to whether or not my plan was a rightly -puddled one--which was a way of asking if it would hold water in a -scientific as well as a metaphorical sense. He advised concrete, and -concrete I ordered, though I was quite well aware of the fact that in -doing so I must abandon all hopes of the swallows, for I knew that with -concrete there would be none of that mud in the pond which the great -naturalists had agreed was indispensable for the hibernating of the -birds. - -A round pond basin was made, about fifteen feet in diameter, and -admirably made too. In the centre I created an island with the nozzle -of a single _jet d'eau_, carefully concealed, and by an extraordinary -chance I discovered within an inch or two of the brim of the basin, the -channel of an ancient scheme of drainage--it may have been a thousand -years old--and this solved in a moment the problem of how to carry -off the overflow. The water was easily available from the ordinary -“Company's” pipe for the garden supply; so that all that remained for -me to do was to tidy up the ground, which I did by getting six tons -of soft reddish sandstone from a neighbouring quarry and piling it in -irregular masses on two sectors of the circular space, taking care to -arrange for a scheme of “pockets” for small plants at one part and for -large ferns at another. The greatest elevation of this boundary was -about fifteen feet, and here I put a noble cliff weighing a ton and a -half, with several irregular steps at the base, the lowest being just -above a series of stone rectangular basins, connected by irregular -shallow channels in a descent to the big pond. Then I got a leaden pipe -with an “elbow” attachment to the Company's water supply beneath, and -contrived a sort of T-shaped spray which I concealed on the level of the -top of my cliff, and within forty-eight hours I had a miniature cascade -pouring over the cliff and splashing among the stone basins and the ir -channels--“_per averpace coi seguaci sui_”--in the large pond below. - -[Illustration: 0197] - -Of course it took a summer and a winter to give this little scheme a -chance of assimilating with Nature; but once it began to do so it did so -thoroughly. The cliff and the rocky steps, which I had made in memory -of the cascade at Platte Klip on the side of Table Mountain where I -had often enjoyed a bath, became beautifully slimy, and primroses were -blooming so as to hide the outlines of the rectangle, while Alpines and -sedums and harts-tongue ferns found accommodation in the pockets among -the stones. In the course of another year the place was covered with -vegetation and the sandstones had become beautifully weathered, and -sure enough, the boughs of the American oak had their Narcissus longings -realised, but without the Narcissus sequel. - -Here, then, was a second “feature” accomplished; and we walk out of -the sunshine of the House Garden, and, passing through the carved stone -doorway, find ourselves in complete shade with the sound of tinkling -water in the air--when the taps are turned in the right direction; but -in the matter of water we are economical, and the cascade ceased to flow -while the war lasted. - -I do not think that it is wrong to try to achieve such contrasts in -designing a range of gardens. The effect is great and it will never -appear to be cheap, provided that it is carried out naturally. I do not -think that in a place of the character of that just described one should -introduce such objects as shrubs in tubs, or clipped trees; nor should -one tolerate the appearance for the sake, perhaps, of colour, of any -plant or flower that might not be found in the natural scene on which -it is founded. We all know that in a rocky glen we need not look for -brilliant colour, therefore the introduction of anything striking -in this way would be a jarring note. To be sure I have seen the -irrepressible scarlet geranium blazing through some glens in the island -of St. Helena; but St. Helena is in the tropics, and a tropical glen is -not the sort to which we have become accustomed in England. If one has -lived at St. Helena for years and, on coming to England, wishes to be -constantly reminded of the little island of glens and gorges and that -immense “combe” where James Town nestles, beyond a doubt that strange -person could not do better than create a garden of gullies with the -indigenous geranium blazing out of every cranny. But I cannot imagine -any one being so anxious to perpetuate a stay among the picturesque -loneliness of the place. I think it extremely unlikely that if Napoleon -I. had lived to return to France, he would have assimilated any portion -of the gardens of Versailles with those that were under his windows -at Longwood. I could more easily fancy his making an honest attempt to -transform the ridge above Geranium Valley on which Longwood stands--if -there is anything of that queer residence left by the white ants--the -natural owners of the island--into a memory of the Grand Trianon, only -for the “_maggior dolore_” that would have come to him had such an -enterprise been successful. - -My opinion is that a garden should be such as to cause a visitor to -exclaim,-- - -“How natural!” rather than, “How queer!” - -A lake may be artificial; but it will only appear so if its location -is artificial; and, therefore, in spite of the fact that there are -countless mountain tarns in Scotland and Wales, it is safest for the -lake to be made on the lowest part of your ground. I dare say that a -scientific man without a conscience could, by an arrangement of forced -draught apparatus, cause an artificial river to flow uphill instead of -down; but though such a stream would be quite a pleasing incident of one -of the soirees of the Royal Society at Burlington House, I am certain -that it would look more curious than natural if carried out in an -English garden ground. The artificial canals of the Dutch gardens and -of those English gardens which were made to remind William III. of his -native land, will look natural in proportion to their artificiality. -This is not so hard a saying as it may seem; I mean to say that if the -artificial canal apes a natural river, it will look unnatural. If it -aims at being nothing but a Dutch canal, it will be a very interesting -part of a garden--a Dutch garden--plan, and as such it will seem in the -right and natural place. If a thing occupies a natural place--the place -where you expect to find it--it must be criticised from the standpoint -of its environment, so to speak, and not on the basis of the canons that -have a general application. - -And to my mind the difference between what is right and what is wrong in -a garden is not the difference between what is the fashion and what is -not the fashion; but between the appropriate and the inappropriate. A -rectangular canal is quite right in a copy of the Dutch garden; but it -would be quite wrong within sight of the cascades of the Villa d'Este or -any other Italian garden. Topiary work is quite right in a garden that -is meant frankly to be a copy of one of the clipped shrubberies of -the seventeenth and of the eighteenth century that preceded landscape -treatment, but it is utterly out of place in a garden where flowers -grow according to their own sweet will, as in a rosery or a herbaceous -border. A large number of people dislike what Mr. Robinson calls -“Vegetable Sculpture,” and would not allow any example to have a place -on their property; but although I think I might trust myself to resist -every temptation to admit such an element into a garden of mine, I -should not hesitate to make a feature of it if I wanted to be constantly -reminded of a certain period of history. It would be as unjust to -blame me on this account as it would be to blame Mr. Hugh Thomson for -introducing topiary into one of his exquisite illustrations to Sir Roger -de Coverley. I would, I know, take great pleasure in sitting for hours -among the peacocks and bears and cocked hats of the topiary sculptor, -because I should feel myself in the company of Sir Roger and Will -Wimble, and I consider that they would be very good company indeed; but -I admit that I should prefer that that particular garden was on some -one else's property. I should spend a very pleasant twenty minutes in. -a neighbour's--a near neighbour's--reproduction of the grotto at Pope's -Villa at Twickenham, not because I should be wanting in a legitimate -abhorrence of the thing, but because I should be able to repeople it -with several very pleasant people--say, Arbuthnot, Garth, and Mr. Henry -Labouchere. But heaven forbid that I should spend years of my life in -the construction of a second Pope's grotto as one of the features of my -all-too-constricted garden space. - -One could easily write a book on “Illustrating Gardens,” meaning not the -art of reproducing illustrations of gardens, but the art of constructing -gardens that would illustrate the lives of certain interesting people -at certain interesting periods. The educational value of gardens formed -with such an intent would be great, I am sure. I had occasion some -time ago to act the part of their governess to my little girls, and to -Dorothy's undisguised amazement I took the class into the garden, and -not knowing how to begin--whether with an inquiry into the economic -value of a thorough grounding in Conic Sections, or a consideration of -the circumstances attending the death of Mary Queen of Scots--I have -long believed that a modern coroner's jury would have found that the -cause of death was blood poisoning, as there is no evidence that the -fatal axe was aseptic, not having been boiled before using--I begged the -girls to walk round with me. - -“This is something quite new,” said Rosamund--“lessons in a garden.” - -“Is it?” I asked. “Did Miss Pinkerton ever tell you about a man named -Plato?” - -It was generally admitted that if she had ever done so they would have -remembered the name. - -I saw at once that this was a chance that might not occur again for me -to recover my position. The respect that I have for Miss Pinkerton is -almost equal to that I have for Lemprière or Dr. Wilkam Smith. - -I unfolded like a philaetery the stores of my knowledge on the subject -of the garden of Academus, where Plato and his pupils were wont to meet -and discover-- - - “How charming is divine philosophy! - - Not harsh and crabbed as some fools affirm, - - But musical as is Apollo's lute,” - -and the children learned for the first time the origin of the name -Academy. They were struck powerfully with the idea, which they thought -an excellent one, of the open-air class. - -This was an honest attempt on my part to illustrate something through -the medium of the garden; but Miss Pinkerton's methods differed from -those of Plato: the blackboard was, in her opinion, the only medium of -illustration for a properly organised class. - -It was a daily delight to me when I lived in Kensington to believe that -Addison must have walked through my garden when he had that cottage on -the secluded Fulham Road, far away from the distracting noise and bustle -of the town, and went to pay a visit to his wife at Holland Park. Some -of the trees of that garden must have been planted even before Addison's -day. There was a mighty mulberry-tree--a straggler from Melbury (once -Mulbery) Road--and this was probably one of the thousands planted by -King James when he became possessed of that admirable idea of silk -culture in England. Now, strange to say, I could picture to myself -much more vividly the presence of Addison in that garden than I can the -bustle of the old Castle's people within the walls which dominate -my present ground. These people occupied the Castle from century to -century. When they first entered into possession they wore the costume -of the Conquest, and no doubt they honoured the decrees of fashion as -they changed from year to year; but they faded away without leaving a -record of any personality to absorb the attention of the centuries, and -without such an individuality I find it impossible to realise the scene, -except for an occasional hour when the moonlight bathes the tower of the -ruined keep, and I fancy that I hear the iron tread of the warder going -his rounds--I cannot plunge myself into the spacious days of plate -armour. It is the one Great Man or the one Great Woman that enables us -nowadays to realise his or her period, and our Castle has unhappily no -ghost with a name, and one ghost with a name is more than an armed host -of nonentities. There is a tradition--there is just a scrap of evidence -to support it--that Dr. Samuel Johnson once visited a house in the High -Street and ate cherries in the garden. Every time I have visited that -house I have seen the lumbering Hogarthian hero intent upon his feast, -and every time that I am in that garden I hear the sound of his “Why, -sir----” - -I complained bitterly to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he was with us in -the tilt-yard garden, that we had not even the shadow of a ghost--ghosts -by the hundred, no doubt, but no real ghost of some one that did things. - -“You will have to create one for yourself,” he said. - -“One must have bones and flesh and blood--plenty of blood, before one -can create a ghost, as you well know,” said I. “I have searched every -available spot for a name associated with the place, but I have found -nothing.” - -“Don't be in a hurry; he'll turn up some day when you're not expecting -him,” said my friend. - -[Illustration: 0208] - -But I am still awaiting an entity connected with the Castle, and I -swear, as did the young Lord Hamlet:-- - -“By Heaven! I'll make a ghost of him that lets me.” - - - - -CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH - -Our Garden of Peace is a Garden of Freedom--freedom of thought, freedom -of converse. In it one may cultivate all the flora of illiteracy without -rebuke, as well as the more delicate, but possibly less fragrant growths -of literature, including those hybrids which I suppose must give great -satisfaction to the cultivators. We assert our claim to talk about -whatever we please: we will not submit to be told that anything is out -of our reach as a subject: if we cannot reach the things that are -so defined we can at least make an attempt to knock them down with a -bamboo. Eventually we may even discourse of flowers; but if we do we -certainly will not adopt the horticultural standard of worth, which -is “of no/some commercial value.” A good many things well worthy of a -strict avoidance in conversation possess great commercial value, and -others that we hold very close to our hearts are of no more intrinsic -value than a Victoria Cross. We have done and shall do our best, -however, not to make use of the word culture, unless it be in connection -with a disease. The lecturers on tropical diseases talk of their -“cholera cultures” and their “yellow fever cultures” and their “malaria -cultures but we know that there is a more malignant growth than any of -these: it is spelt by its cultivators with the phonetic “K” and it has -banished the word that begins with a “c” from the English language, -unless, as I say, in referring to the development of a malady. That is -where victory may be claimed by the vanquished: the beautiful word is -banished for ever from the English literature in which it once occupied -an exalted place. - -It is because of the Freedom which we enjoy in this Garden of Peace of -ours that I did not hesitate for a moment to quote Tennyson to Dorothy -a few' days ago, when we were chatting about Poets' Gardens, from -the “garden inclosed” of the Song of Solomon--the most beautiful ever -depicted--to that of _Maud_. It requires some courage to quote Tennyson -beyond the limits of our own fireside in these days. The days when he -was constantly quoted now seem as the days of Noë, before the Flood--the -flood of the formless which we are assured is poetry nowadays. It is -called “The New School.” Some twenty-five or thirty years ago something -straddled across our way through the world labelled “New Art.” Its -lines were founded upon those of the crushed cockroach, and it may have -contributed to the advance of the temperance movement; for its tendency -was certainly to cause any inebriate who found a specimen watching -him wickedly from the mouth of a vase of imitation pewter on the -mantel-shelf in a drawingroom, or in the form of a pendant in -sealing-wax enamel on the neck of a young woman, to pull himself -together and sign anything in reason in the direction of abstaining. - -The new poetry is the illiterary equivalent of the old “New Art.” It -is flung in our faces with the effect of a promiscuous handful from the -bargain counter of a draper's cheap sale--it is a whiz of odd lengths -and queer colours, and has no form but plenty of flutter. Poetry may not -be as a great critic said it was--form and form and nothing but form; -but it certainly is not that amorphous stuff which is jerked into many -pages just now. I have read pages of it in which the writers seem to -have taken as a model of design one of the long dedications of the -eighteenth century, or perhaps the “lettering” on the tombstone of the -squire in a country church, or, most likely of all, the half column of -“scare headings” in a Sunday newspaper in one of the Western States of -America. - -It may begin with a monosyllable, and be followed by an Alexandrine; -then come a stuttering halfdozen unequal ribbon lengths, rather -shop-soiled, and none of them riming; but suddenly we find the tenth -line in rime with the initial monosyllable which you have forgotten. -Then there may come three or four rimes and as many half-rimes--f-sharp -instead of f--and then comes a bundle of prosaic lines with the mark -of the scissors on their ragged endings: the ravellings are assumed -to adorn the close as the fringes of long ago were supposed to give a -high-class “finish” to the green rep upholstering of the drawing-room -centre ottoman. - -And yet alongside this sort of thing we pick up many thin volumes of -verse crowded with beauty of thought, of imagination, of passion. - -And then what do we find given to us every week in _Punch_ and several -of the illustrated papers? Poem after poem of the most perfect form -in rhythm and rimes--faultless double rimes and triple and quadruple -syllables all ringing far more true than any in _Hudibras_ or the -_Ingoldsby Legends_. Sir Owen Seaman's verses surpass anything in the -English language for originality both in phrase and thought, and Adrian -Ross has shown himself the equal of Gilbert in construction. The editor -of _Punch_ has been especially happy in his curry-combing of the German -ex-Kaiser; we do not forget that it was his poem on the same personage, -which appeared in _The World_ after the celebrated telegram to Kruger, -that gave him his sure footing among the _élite_ of satirical humour. - - “The Pots-- - - Dam silly,” - -was surely the most finished sting that ever came from the tail of what -I venture to call “vespa-verse.” - -I remember how, when I came upon Barham's rime,-- - - “Because Mephistopheles - - Had thrown in her face a whole cup of hot coffee-lees,” - -I thought that the limits of the “triple-bob,” as I should like to -call it, had been reached. Years afterwards I found myself in a fit of -chuckling over Byron's - - “Tell us ye husbands of wives intellectual, - - Now tell us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?” - -After another lapse I found among the carillon of Calverley,-- - - “No, mine own, though early forced to leave you, - - Still my heart was there where first we met; - - In those 'Lodgings with an ample sea-view,' - - Which were, forty years ago, 'To Let.'” - -The _Bab Ballads_ are full of whimsical rimes; but put all these that I -have named together and you will find that they are easily outjingled -by Sir Owen Seaman. The first “copy of verses” in _Punch_ any week is a -masterpiece in its way, and assuredly some of his brethren of Bouverie -Street are not very far behind him in the merry dance in which he sets -the _pas_. - -A good many years ago--I think it was shortly after the capitulation -of Paris--there was a correspondence in _The Graphic_ about the English -words for which no rime could be found. One was “silver,” the other -“month.” It was, I think, Burnand who, contrived,-- - - “Argentum, we know, is the Latin for silver, - - And the Latin for spring ever was and is still, ver.” - -But then purists shook their heads and said that Latin was not English, -and the challenge was for English rimes. - -As for “month,” Mr. Swinburne did not hesitate to write a whole volume -of exquisite poems to a child to bring in his rime for month: it was -millionth but the metre was so handled by the master that it would -have been impossible for even the most casual reader to make the word a -dissyllable. In the same volume he found a rime for babe in “astrolabe.” - -(With regard to my spelling of the word “rime,” I may here remark that I -have done so for years. I was gratified to find my lead followed in the -_Cambridge History of English Literature._) - -And all this weedy harvest of criticism and reminiscence has come -through my quoting Tennyson without an apology! All that I really had to -say was that there is no maker of verses in England to-day who has -the same mastery of metre as Tennyson had. It is indeed because of the -delicacy of his ear for words that so many readers are disposed to think -his verse artificial. But there are people who think that all art is -artificial. (This is a very imminent subject for consideration in a -garden, and it has been considered by great authorities in at least two -books, to which I may refer if I go so far as to write something about a -garden in these pages.) All that I will say about the art, the artifice, -the artfulness, or the artificiality of the pictures that Tennyson -brings before my eyes through his mastery of his medium, is that I have -always placed a higher value upon the meticulous than upon the slap-dash -in every form of art. It was said that the late Duke of Cambridge could -detect a speck of rust on a sabre quicker than any Commander-in-Chief -that ever lived; but I do not therefore hold that he was a greater -soldier than Marlborough. But if Marlborough could make the brightness -of his sabres do the things that he meant them to do, his victories were -all the more brilliant. - -I dare say there are quite a number of people who think that Edmund -Yates's doggerel about a brand of Champagne--it commences something like -this, if my memory serves me:-- - - “Dining with Bulteen - - Captain of Militia, - - Ne'er was dinner seen - - Soapier or fishyer------” - -quite equal to the best that Calverley or Seaman ever wrote, because it -has that slap-dash element about it that disregards correct rimes; but -I am not among those critics. Tennyson does not usually paint an -impressionist picture, though he can do so when he pleases; he is rather -a pre-Raphaelite; but, however he works, he produces his picture and -it is a picture. Talk of Art and Nature--there never was a poet who -reproduced Nature with an art so consummate; there never was a poet who -used his art so graphically. Of course I am now talking of Tennyson -at his best, not of Tennyson of _The May Queen_, which is certainly -deficient enough in art to please---as it has pleased--the despisers of -the meticulous, but of Tennyson in his lyrical mood--of the garden-song -in _Maud_, of the echo-song in _The Princess_---both diamonds, not in -the rough, but cut into countless facets--Tennyson in _The Passing of -Arthur_, and countless pages of the _Idylls_, Tennyson of the pictorial -simplicity of _Enoch Arden_ and the full brush of _Ulysses, Tithonus, -Lucretius_, the battle glow of _The Ballad of the Revenge_, the muted -trumpet-notes of _The Defence of Lucknow._ - -And yet through all are those lowering lines which somehow he would -insist on introducing in the wrong places with infinite pains! It was -as if he took the trouble to help us up a high marble staircase to -the cupola of a tower, and to throw open before our eyes a splendid -landscape, only to trip us up when we are lost in wonder of it all, and -send us headlong to the dead earth below. - -It was when we were looking down a gorge of tropical splendour in -the island of Dominica in the West Indies opening a wide mouth to the -Caribbean, that the incomparable lines from _Enoch Arden_ came upon me -in the flash of the crimson-and-blue wings of a bird--one of the many -lories, I think it was--that fled about the wild masses of the brake -of hibiscus, and I said them to Dorothy. Under our eyes was a tropical -garden on each side of the valley--a riot of colour--a tropical sunset -laid at our feet in the tints of a thousand flowers down to where the -countless palms of the gorge began to mingle with the yuccas that swayed -over the sea-cliffs in the blue distance. - - “The league-long roller thundering on the reef, - - The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd - - And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep - - Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, - - As down the shore he ranged, or all day long - - Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, - - A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail. - - No sail from dav to day, but every day - - The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts - - Among the palms and ferns and precipices; - - The blaze upon the waters to the east; - - The blaze upon, his island overhead; - - The blaze upon the waters to the west; - - Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, - - The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again - - The scarlet shafts of sunrise--but no sail.” - -There was the most perfect picture of the tropical island. - -Some months after we had returned to England I found the _Enoch Arden_ -volume lying on the door at Dorothy's feet. She was roseate with -indignation as I entered the room. I paused for an explanation. - -It came. She touched the book with her foot--it was a symbolic spurn--as -much as any one with a conscience could give to a royal-blue tooled -morocco binding. - -“How could he do it?” she cried. - -“Do what?” - -“Those two lines at the end. Listen to this”--she picked up the book -with a sort of indignant snatch:-- - - “'There came so loud a calling of the sea - - That all the houses in the haven rang. - - He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad - - Crying with a loud voice, “A sail! a sail! - - I am saved,” and so fell back and spoke no more. - - So past the strong, heroic soul away. - - And when they buried him the little port - - Had seldom, seen a costlier funeral.' - -“Now tell me if I don't do well to be angary,” cried Dorothy. “Those two -lines--'a costlier funeral'! he should have given the items in the bill -and said what was the name of the undertaker. Oh, why didn't you warn -me off that awful conclusion? What should you say the bill came to? Oh, -Alfred, Lord Tennyson!” - -I shook my head sadly, of course. - -“He does that sort of thing now and then,” I said sadly. “You remember -the young lady whose 'light blue eyes' were 'tender over drowning dies'? -and the 'oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies.'” - -“I do now, but they are not so bad as that about the costly funeral. Why -does he do it--tell me that--put me wise?” - -“I suppose we must all have our bit of fun now and again. Kean, when in -the middle of his most rousing piece of declamation, used to turn -from his spellbound audience and put out his tongue at one of the -scene-shifters. If you want to be kept constantly at the highest level -you must stick to Milton.” - -There was a pause before Dorothy said,-- - -“I suppose so; and yet was there ever anything funnier than his -description of the battle in heaven?” - -“Funny? Majestic, you mean?” said I, deeply shocked. - -“Well, majestically funny, if you wish. The idea of those 'ethereal -virtues' throwing big stones at one another, and knowing all the time -that it didn't matter whether they were hit or not--the gashes closed -like the gashes we loved making with our spades in the stranded -jelly-fish at low tide. But I suppose you will tell me that Milton must -have his joke with the rest of them. Oh, I wonder if all poetry is not a -fraud.” - -That is how Tennyson did for himself by not knowing where to stop. I -expect that what really happened was that when he had written:-- - - “So past the strong, heroic soul away,” - -he found that there was still room for a couple of lines on the page and -he could not bear to see the space wasted. - -And it was not wasted either; for I remember talking to the late Dr. -John Todhunter, himself a most accomplished poet and a scholarly critic, -about the “costlier funeral” lines, and he defended them warmly. - -And the satisfying of Dr. Todhunter must be regarded as counting for a -good deal more in the balance against my poor Dorothy's disapproval. - -Lest this chapter should appear aggressively digressive in a book that -may be fancied to have some-thing to do with gardens, I may say -that while Alfred, Lord Tennyson had a great love for observing the -peculiarities of flower and plant growths, he must have cared precious -little for the garden as the solace of one's declining years. He did -not pant for it as the hart pants for the water-brooks. He never came to -think of the hours spent out of a garden as wasted. He did not live -in his garden, nor did he live for it. That is what amazes us in these -days, nearly as much as the stories of the feats of Mr. Gladstone with -the axe of the woodcutter. Not many of us would have the heart to stand -by while a magnificent oak or sycamore is being cut down. We would -shrink from such an incident as we should from an execution. But forty -years ago the masses were ready to worship the executioner. They used to -be admitted in crowds to Hawarden to watch the heroic old gentleman -in his shirt-sleeves and with his braces hanging down, butchering a -venerable elm in his park, and when the trunk crashed to the ground they -cheered vociferously, and when he wiped the perspiration from his brow, -they rushed forward to dip their handkerchiefs in the drops just as men -and women tried to damp their handkerchiefs in the drippings of the axe -of the headsman, who, in a stroke, slew a monarch and made a martyr, -outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. - -And when the excursionists were cheering the hero of Hawarden, Thomas -Hardy was writing _The Woodlanders_. Between Hardy and Hawarden there -was certainly a great gulf fixed. I do not think that any poet ever -wrote an elegy so affecting as the chapter on the slaying of the oak -outside the house of the old man who died of the shock. But the scent -of the woodland clings to the whole hook; I have read it once a year for -more than a quarter of a century. - -Tennyson never showed that he loved his garden as Mr. Hardy showed he -loved his woodland. In the many beautiful lines suggesting his affection -for his lawns and borders Tennyson makes a reader feel that his joy was -purely Platonic--sometimes patronisingly Platonic. It is very far from -approaching the passion of a lover for his mistress. One feels that he -actually held that the garden was made for the poet not the poet for the -garden, which, I need hardly say, we all hold to be a heresy. The union -between the true garden-lover and the garden may be a mésalliance, but -that is better than _marriage de convenance_. - -But to return to the subject of Poets' Gardens, we agreed that the -gardens of neither of the poet's dwelling-places were worth noticing; -but they were miracles of design compared with that at the red brick -villa where the white buses stopped at Putney--the house where the body -of Algernon Charles Swinburne lay carefully embalmed by his friend, -Theodore Watts-Dunton. Highly favoured visitors were occasionally -admitted to inspect the result of the process by which the poet had his -palpitations reduced to the discreet beats of the Putney metronome, and -visitors shook their heads and said it was a marvellous reformation. -So it was--a triumph of the science of embalming, not “with spices and -savour of song,” but with the savourless salt of True Friendship. The -reformed poet was now presentable, but he was no longer a live poet: the -work of reformation had changed the man into a mummy--a most presentable -mummy; and it was understood that the placid existence of a mummy is -esteemed much more than the passionate rapture of an early morning lark, -or of the nightingale that has a bad habit of staying out all night. - -It is a most unhappy thing that the first operation of the professional -embalmer is to extract the brains of his subject, and this was done -through the medium of a quill--a very suitable implement in the case of -a writer: he has begun the process himself long before he is stretched -on the table of the operator. Almost equally important it is that the -subject should be thoroughly dried. Mr. Swinburne's true friend knew his -business: he kept him perpetually dry and with his brain atrophied. - -The last time I saw the poet he was on view under the desiccating -influence of a biscuit factory. He looked very miserable, and I know -that I felt very miserable observing the triumph of the Watts-Dunton -treatment, and remembering the day when the glory and glow of _Songs -before Sunrise_ enwrapt me until I felt that the whole world would -awaken when such a poet set the trumpet to his lips to blow! - -Mr. Watts-Dunton played the part of Vivien to that merle Merlin, and all -the forest echoed “Fool!” - -But it was really a wonderful reformation that he brought about. - -I looked into the garden at that Putney reformatory many times. It was -one of the genteelest places I ever saw and so handy for the buses. It -was called, by one of those flashes of inspiration not unknown in the -suburbs, “The Pines.” It might easily have been “The Cedars” or “The -Hollies,” or even “Laburnum Villa.” - -The poet was carefully shielded by his true friend. Few visitors were -allowed to see him. The more pushing were, however, met half-way. -They were permitted as a treat to handle the knob of Mr. Swinburne's -walking-stick. - -Was it, I wonder, a Transatlantic visitor who picked up from the -linoleum of the hall beside the veneered mahogany hat-stand, and the -cast-iron umbrella-holder, a scrap of paper in the poet's handwriting -with the stanza of a projected lyric?-- - - “I am of dust and of dryness; - - I am weary of dryness and dust! - - But for my constitutional shyness - - I'd go on a bust.” - - - - -CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH - -I came across an excellent piece of advice the other day in a -commonplace volume on planning a garden. It was in regard to the place -of statuary in a garden. But the writer is very timid in this matter. He -writes as if he hoped no one would overhear him when he says that he -has no rooted objection, although many people have, to a few bits of -statuary; but on no plea would he allow them the freedom of the garden; -their place should be close to the house, and they should be admitted -even to that restricted territory only with the greatest caution. On -no account should anything of that sort be allowed to put a foot beyond -where the real garden begins--the real clearly being the herbaceous -part, though the formal is never referred to as the ideal. - -He gives advice regarding the figures as does a “friend of the family” - when consulted about the boys who are Inclined to be wild or the girls -who are a bit skittish. No, no; one should be very firm with Hermes; -from the stories that somehow get about regarding him, he is certainly -inclined to be fast; he must not be given a latch-key; and as for -Artemis--well, it is most likely only thoughtlessness on her part, but -she should not be allowed to hunt more than two days a week. Still, if -looked after, both Hermy and Arty will be all right; above all things, -however, the list of their associates should be carefully revised: the -fewer companions they have the better it will be for all concerned. - -Now, I venture to agree with all this advice generally. Fond as I am of -statuary, whether stone or lead, I am sure that it is safest in or about -the House Garden; and no figure that I possess is in any other part of -my ground; but this is only because I do not possess a single Faun or -Dryad or Daphne. If I were lucky enough to have these, I should know -where to place them and it would not be in a place of formality, but -just the opposite. They have no business with formalities, and would -look as incongruous among the divinities who seem quite happy on -pedestals as would Pan in modern evening dress, or a Russian _danceuse_ -in corsets, or a Polish in anything at all. - -If I had a Pan I would not be afraid to locate him in the densest part -of a shrubbery, where only his ears and the grin between them could be -seen among the foliage and his goat's shank among the lower branches. -His effigy is shown n its legitimate place in Gabe's Picture, “Fête -Galante.” That is the correct habitat of Pan, and that is where he would -be shown in the hall of the Natural History Museum where every “exhibit” - has its natural _entourage_. If I had a Dryad and had not a pond with -reeds about its marge, I would make one for her accommodation, for, -except with such surroundings she should not be seen in a garden. I -have a Daphne, but she is an indoor one, being frailly made, and with -a year's work of undercutting, in Greek marble--a precious copy of -Bernini's masterpiece. But if I had an outdoor Daphne, I would not rest -easy unless I knew that she was within easy touch of her laurel. - -That is why I do not think that any hard and fast rule should be laid -down in the matter of the disposal of statuary in a garden ground. But -on the general principle of “the proper place,” I certainly am of the -opinion expressed by the writer to whom I have referred--that this -element of interest and beauty should be found mainly in connection -with the stonework of the house. In any part of an Italian garden stone -figures seem properly placed; because so much of that form of garden -is made up of sculptured stone; but in the best examples of the art you -will find that the statuary is placed with due regard to the “feature” - it is meant to illustrate. It is, in fact, part of the design and -eminently decorative, as well as being stimulating to the memory and -suggestive to the imagination. In most of the English gardens that -were planned and carried out during the greater part of the nineteenth -century, the stone and lead figures that formed a portion of the -original design of the earlier days were thrown about without the least -reference to their fitness for the places they were forced to occupy; -and the consequence was that they never seemed right: they seemed to -have no business where they were; hence the creation of a prejudice -against such things. Happily, however, now that it is taken for granted -that garden design is the work of some one who is more of an architect -than a horticulturist, though capability in the one direction is -intolerable without its complement in the other, the garden ornamental -is coming into its own again; and the prices which even ordinary and by -no means unique examples fetch under the hammer show that they are being -properly appreciated. - -It is mainly in public parks that one finds the horticultural skill -overbalanced, not by the architectural, but by the “Parks Committee” - of the Town Council; consequently knowing, as every one must, the usual -type of the Town Council Committee-man, one can only look for a display -of ignorance, stupidity, and bad taste, the result of a combination of -the three being sheer vulgarity. The Town Council usually have a highly -competent horticulturist, and his part of the business is done well; -but I have known many cases of the professional man being overruled by a -vulgar, conceited member of the Committee even on a professional point, -such as the arrangement of colour in a bed of single dahlias. - -“My missus abominates yaller,” was enough to veto a thoroughly artistic -scheme for a portion of a public garden. - -I was in the studio of a distinguished portrait painter in London on -what was called “Show Sunday”--the Sunday previous to the sending of the -pictures to the Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy, and there I was -introduced by the artist, who wanted to throw the fellow at somebody's -head, not having anything handy that he could, without discourtesy, -throw at the fellow's head, to a gentleman representing the Committee -of Selection of a movement in one of the most important towns in the -Midlands, to present the outgoing Lord Mayor with a portrait of himself. -With so aggressively blatant a specimen of cast-iron conceit I had never -previously been brought in contact. At least three of the portraits on -the easels in the studio were superb. At the Academy Exhibition they -attracted a great deal of attention and the most laudatory criticism. -But the delegate from the Midlands shook his head at them and gave a -derisive snuffle. - -“Not up to much,” he muttered to me. “I reckon I'll deal in another -shop. I ain't the sort as is carried away by the sound of a name. I may -not be one of your crickets; but I know what I like and I know what I -don't like, and these likenesses is them. Who's that old cock with the -heyglass--I somehow seem to feel that I've seen him before?” - -I told him that the person whom he indicated was Lord Goschen. - -“I guessed he was something in that line--wears the heyglass to make -people fancy he's something swagger. Well, so long.” - -That was the last we saw of the delegate. He was not one of the -horny-handed, I found out; but he had some connection with these -art-arbiters; he was the owner of a restaurant that catered for artisans -of the lower grade. - -I had the curiosity to inquire of a friend living in the town he -represented so efficiently, respecting the commission for the portrait, -and he gave me the name of a flashy meretricious painter whose work was -treated with derision from Chelsea to St. John's Wood. But my informant -added that the Committee of the Council were quite pleased with the -portrait, and had drunk the health of the painter on the day of its -presentation. - -When a distinguished writer expressed the opinion that there is -safety in a multitude of councillors, he certainly did not mean Town -Councillors. If he did he was wrong. - -When on the subject of the garden ornamental, I should like to venture -to express my opinion that it is a mistake to fancy that it is not -possible to furnish your grounds tastefully and in a way that will add -immensely to their interest unless with conventional objects--in the way -of sundials or bird baths or vases or seats. I know that the Venetian -well-heads which look so effective, cost a great deal of money, and so -does the wrought-iron work if it is at all good, and unless it is good -it is not worth possessing. But if you have an uncontrollable ambition -to possess a wellhead, why not get the local builder to construct one -for you, with rubble facing of hits of stone of varying colour, only -asking a mason to make a sandstone coping for the rim and carve the -edge? This could be done for three or four pounds, and if properly -designed would make a most interesting and suggestive ornament. - -There is scarcely a stonemason's yard in any town that will not furnish -a person of some resource with many bits of spoilt carving that could be -used to advantage if the fault is not obtrusive. If you live in a brick -villa, you may consider yourself fortunate in some ways; for you need -not trouble about stonework--brick-coloured terra-cotta ornaments will -give a delightful sense of warmth to a garden, and these may be -bought for very little if you go to the right place for them; and your -builder's catalogue will enable you to see what an endless variety of -sizes and shapes there is available in the form of enrichments for shop -façades. Only a little imagination is required to allow of your seeing -how you can work in some of these to advantage. - -But, in my opinion, nothing looks better in a villa garden than a few -large flower-pots of what I might perhaps call the natural shape. These -never seem out of place and never in bad taste. Several that I have seen -have a little enrichment, and if you get your builder to make up a low -brick pedestal for each, using angle bricks and pier bricks, you will -be out of pocket to the amount of a few shillings and you will have -obtained an effect that will never pall on you. But you must remember -that the pedestal--I should call it the stand--should be no more than -a foot high. I do not advocate the employment of old terra-cotta -drain-pipes for anything in a garden. Nothing can be made out of -drain-pipes except a drain. - -There is, of course, no need for any garden to depend on ornaments for -good effect; a garden is well furnished with its flowers, and you will -find great pleasure in realising your ideas and your ideals if you -devote yourself to growth and growth only; all that I do affirm is that -your pleasure will be greatly increased if you try by all the means in -your power to make your garden worthy of the flowers. The “love that -beauty should go beautifully,” will, I think, meet with its reward. - -Of course, if you have a large piece of ground and take my advice in -making several gardens instead of one only, you may make a red garden of -some portion by using terra-cotta freely, and I am sure that the effect -would be pleasing. I have often thought of doing this; but somehow I was -never in possession of a piece of ground that would lend itself to such -a treatment, though I have made a free use of terracotta vases along the -rose border of my house garden, and I found that the placing of a large -well-weathered Italian oil-jar between the pillars of a colonnade, -inserting a pot of coloured daisies, was very effective, and intensely -stimulating to the pantomime erudition of our visitors, for never did -one catch a glimpse of these jars without crying, “Hallo! Ali Baba.” I -promised to forfeit a sum of money equivalent to the price of one of the -jars to a member of our family on the day when a friend walks round the -place failing to mention the name of that wily Oriental. It is quite -likely that behind my back they allude to the rose colonnade as “The Ali -Baba place.” - -Before I leave the subject of the garden ornamental, I must say a word -as to the use of marble. - -I have seen in many of those volumes of such good advice as will result, -if it is followed, in the creation of a thoroughly conventional garden, -that in England the use of marble out-of-doors cannot be tolerated. It -may pass muster in Italy, where there are quarries of varions marbles, -but it is quite unsuited to the English climate. The material is -condemned as cold, and that is the last thing we want to achieve in -these latitudes, and it is also “out of place”--so one book assures me, -but without explaining on what grounds it is so, an omission which turns -the assertion into a begging of the question. - -But I am really at a loss to know why marble should be thought out of -place in England. As a matter of fact, it is not so considered, for in -most cemeteries five out of every six tombstones are of marble, and all -the more important pieces of statuary--the life-size angels--I do not -know exactly what is the life-size of an angel, or whether the angel has -been standardised, so I am compelled to assume the human dimensions--and -the groups of cherubs' heads supported on pigeon's wings are almost -invariably carved in marble. These are the objects which are supposed -to endure for centuries (the worst of it is that they do), so that -the material cannot be condemned on account of its being liable to -disintegrate under English climatic conditions: the mortality of marble -cannot cease the moment it is brought into a graveyard. - -The fact of its being mainly white accounts for the complaint that it -conveys the impression of coldness; but it seems to me that this is just -the impression which people look to acquire in some part of a garden. -How many times has one not heard the exclamation from persons passing -out of the sunshine into the grateful shade,-- - -“How delightfully cool!” - -The finest chimney-pieces in the world are of white marble, and a -chimney-piece should certainly not suggest cold. - -That polished marble loses its gloss when it has been for some time in -the open air is undeniable. But I wonder if it is not improved by the -process, considering that in such a condition it assumes a delicate gray -hue in the course of its “weathering” and a texture of its own of a -much finer quality than can be found in ordinary Portland, Bath, or Caen -stones. - -I really see no reason why we should be told that marble--white -marble--is unsuited to an English garden. In Italy we know how beautiful -is its appearance, and I do not think that any one should be sarcastic -in referring to the façades of some of the mansions in Fifth Avenue, New -York City. At least three of these represent the best that can be -bought combined with the best that can be thought. They do not look -aggressively ostentatious, any more than does Milan Cathedral or -Westminster Abbey, or Lyons' restaurants. Marble enters largely into -the “frontages” of Fifth Avenue as well as those of other abodes of the -wealthy in some of the cities of the United States; but we are warned -off its use in the open air in England by writers who are not timid in -formulating canons of what they call “good taste.” In the façade of the -Cathedral at Pisa, there is a black column among the gray ones which are -so effectively introduced in the Romanesque “blind arcading.” I am sorry -that I forget what is the technical name for this treatment; but I have -always thought, when feasting upon the architectural masterpiece, that -the master-builder called each of these little columns by the name of -one of his supporters, but that there was one member of the Consistory -who was always nagging him, and he determined to set a black mark -opposite his name; and did so very effectively by introducing the -dark column, taking good care to let all his friends know the why -and wherefore for his freak. I can see very plainly the grins of the -townsfolk of the period when they saw what had been done, and hear the -whispers of “Signor Antonio della colonna nigra,” when the grumbler -walked by. The master-builders of those times were merry fellows, and -some of them carried their jests--a few of them of doubtful humour--into -the interior of a sacred building, as we may see when we inspect the -carving of the underneath woodwork of many a _miserere._ - -I should like to set down in black and white my protest against the -calumniator of marble for garden ornaments in England, when we have so -splendid an example of its employment in the Queen Victoria Memorial -opposite Buckingham Palace--the noblest work of this character in -England. - -I should like also to write something scathing about the superior person -who sneers at what I have heard called “Gin Palace Art.” This person -is ready to condemn unreservedly the association of art with the -public-house, the hotel, and even the tea-room. Now, considering the -recent slump in real palaces--the bishops have begun calling their -palaces houses--I think that some gratitude should be shown to those -licensed persons who so amply recognise the fact that upon them devolves -the responsibility of carrying on the tradition of the Palace. Long ago, -in the days when there were real Emperors and Kings and Popes, it was -an understood thing that a Royal Residence should be a depository of all -the arts, and in every country except England, this assumption was nobly -acted upon. If it had not been for the magnificent patronage--that is -the right word, for it means protection--of many arts by the Church and -by the State of many countries, we should know very little about the -arts to-day. But when the men of many licences had the name “gin-palace” - given to their edifices--it was given to them in the same spirit of -obloquy as animated the scoffers of Antioch when they invented the name -“Christian”--they nobly resolved to act as the Christians did, by trying -to live up to their new name. We see how far success has crowned their -resolution. The representative hostelries of these days go beyond the -traditional king's house which was all glorious within--they are all -glorious--so far as is consistent with educated taste--as to their -exterior as well. A “tied house” really means nowadays one that is tied -down to the resolution that the best traditions of the palace shall be -maintained. - -Let any one who can remember what the hotels and public-houses and -eating-houses of forty years ago were like, say if the change that has -been brought about is not an improvement that may be considered almost -miraculous. In the old days when a man left the zinc counters of one -of these places of refreshment, he was usually in a condition that was -alluded to euphemistically as “elevated but nowadays the man who pays a -visit to a properly equipped tavern is elevated in no euphemistic sense. -I remember the cockroaches of the old Albion--they were so tame that -they would eat out of your hand. But if they did, the _habitués_ of that -tavern had their revenge: some of these expert gastronomes professed -to be able to tell from the flavour of the soup whether it had been -seasoned with the cockroaches of the table or the black beetles of the -kitchen. - -“What do you mean, sir?” cried an indignant diner to the waiter--“I -ordered portions for three, and yet there are only two cockroaches.” - -I recollect in the old days of The Cock tavern in Fleet Street it was -said when the report was circulated that it was enlarging its borders, -that the name on the sign should be appropriately enlarged from the Cock -to the Cockroach. - -I heard an explanation given of the toleration shown by some of the -frequenters of these places to the cockroach and the blackbeetle. - -“They're afraid to complain,” said my informant, “lest it should be -thought that they were _seeing them, again_.” - -I shall never forget the awful dewey stare of a man who was facing a -tumbler (his third) of hot punch in the Cheshire Cheese, at a mouse -which made its appearance only a yard or two from where we were sitting -shortly before closing time one night. He wiped his forehead and still -stared. The aspect of relief that he showed when I made a remark about -the tameness of the mouse, quite rewarded me for my interposition -between old acquaintances. - -Having mentioned the Cheshire Cheese in connection with the transition -period from zinc to marble--marble is really my theme--I cannot resist -the temptation to refer to the well-preserved tradition of Dr. Johnson's -association with this place. Visitors were shown the place where Dr. -Johnson was wont to sit night after night with his friends--nay, the -very chair that he so fully occupied was on view; and among the most -cherished memories of seeing “Old London” which people from America -acquired, was that of being brought into such close touch with the -eighteenth century by taking lunch in this famous place. - -“There it was just as it had been in good old Samuel's day,” said a man -who knew all about it. “Nothing in the dear old tavern had been changed -since his day--nothing whatever--not even the sand or the sawdust or the -smells.” - -But it so happens that in the hundreds of volumes of contemporary -Johnsoniana, not excepting Boswell's biography, there is no mention of -the name of the Cheshire Cheese. There is not a shred of evidence to -support the belief that Johnson was ever within its doors. The furthest -that conjecture can reasonably go in this connection is that one has no -right to assume that from the list of the taverns frequented by Johnson -the name of the Cheshire Cheese should be excluded. - -The fate of the Cheshire Cheese, however, proves that while tradition as -an asset may be of great value to such a place, yet it has its limits. -Just as soap and the “spellin' school” have done away with the romance -of the noble Red Man, so against the influence of the marble of -modernity, even the full flavoured aura of Dr. Johnson was unable to -hold its own. - -Thus I am brought back--not too late, I hope--to my original theme, which -1 think took the form of a protest against the protestations of those -writers who believe that marble should not find its way into the -ornamentation of an English garden. I have had seats and tables and -vases and columns of various marbles in my House Garden--I have even -had a fountain basin and carved panels of flowers and birds of the same -material--but although some of them show signs of being affected by the -climate, yet nothing has suffered in this way--on the contrary, I find -that Sicilian and “dove” marbles have improved by “weathering.” - -I have a large round table, the top of which is inlaid with a variety -of coloured marbles, and as I allow this to remain out-of-doors during -seven months of the year, I know what sorts best withstand the rigours -of an English South Coast June; and I am inclined to believe that the -ordinary “dove” shows the least sign of hardship at the end of the -season. Of course, the top has lost all its polish, but the cost of -repolishing such a table is not more than ten shillings--I had another -one done some years ago, and that is the sum I was charged for the work -by a well-known firm on the Fulham Road; so that if I should get tired -of seeing it weather-beaten, I can get it restored without impoverishing -the household. - -And the mention of this leads me on to another point which should not be -lost sight of in considering any scheme of garden decoration. - -My Garden of Peace has never been one of “peace at any price.” I have -happily been compelled to give the most inflexible attention to the -price of everything. I like those books on garden design which tell you -how easily you can get leaden figures and magnificent chased vases of -bronze if you wish, but perhaps you would prefer carved stone. You -have only to go to a well-known importer with a cheque-book and a -consciousness of a workable bank balance, and the thing is done. So you -will find in the pre-war cookery books the recipe beginning: “Take two -dozen new-laid eggs, a quart of cream, and a pint of old brandy,” etc. -These bits of advice make very good reading, and doubtless may be read -with composure by some people, but I am not among their number. - -That table, with the twelve panels and a heavy pedestal set on castors, -cost me exactly half a crown at an auction. When new it was probably -bought for twelve or fourteen pounds: it is by no means a piece of work -of the highest class; for a first-class inlaid table one would have to -pay something like forty or fifty pounds: I have seen one fetch £150 at -an auction. But my specimen happened to be the Lot 1 in the catalogue, -and people had not begun to warm to their bidding, marble, as I have -already said, is regarded as cold. Another accident that told against -its chances of inspiring a buyer was the fact that the pedestal wanted -a screw, without which the top would not be in its place, and this made -people think it imperfect and incapable of being put right except at -great expense. The chief reason for its not getting beyond the initial -bid was, however, that no one wanted it. The mothers, particularly those -of “the better class,” in Yardley, are lacking in imagination. If they -want a deal table for a kitchen, they will pay fifteen shillings for -one, and ten shillings for a slab of marble to make their pastry on; but -they would not give half a crown for a marble table which would serve -for kitchen purposes a great deal better than a wooden one, and make a -baking slab--it usually gets broken within a month--unnecessary. - -[Illustration: 0242] - -Why I make so free a use of marble and advise others to do so, is not -merely because I admire it in every form and colour, but because it -can be bought so very cheaply upon occasions--infinitely more so than -Portland or Bath stone. These two rarely come into the second-hand -market, and in the mason's yard a slab is worth so much a square foot or -a cubic foot. But people are now constantly turning out their shapeless -marble mantelpieces and getting wooden ones instead, and the only person -who will buy the former is the general dealer, and the most that he will -give for one that cost £10 or £12 fifty years ago is 10s. or 12s. I -have bought from dealers or builders possibly two dozen of these, never -paying more than 10s. each for the best--actually for the one which I -know was beyond question the best, I paid 6s., the price at which it was -offered to me. An exceptionally fine one of statuary marble with fluted -columns and beautifully carved Corinthian capitals and panels cost me -10s. This mantelpiece was discarded through one of those funny blunders -which enable one to get a bargain. The owner of the house fancied that -it was a production of 1860, when it really was a hundred years earlier. -There are marble mantelpieces and marble mantelpieces. Some fetch 10s. -and others £175. I knew a dealer who bought a large house solely to -acquire the five Bossi mantelpieces which it contained. Occasionally -one may pick up an eighteenth century crystal chandelier which has been -discarded on the supposition that it was one of those shapeless and -tasteless gasaliers which delighted our grandmothers in the days of rep -and Berlin wool. - -But from these confessions I hope no one will be so ungenerous as to -fancy that my prediction for marble is to be accounted for only because -of the chances of buying it cheaply. While I admit that I prefer buying -a beautiful thing for a tenth of its value, I would certainly refuse -to have anything to do with an ugly thing if it were offered to me -for nothing. But the beauty of marble is unassailable. It has been -recognised in every quarter of the world for thousands of years. -The only question upon which opinion is divided is in regard to its -suitability to the English climate. In this connection I beg leave -to record my experience. I take it for granted that when I allude -to marble, it will not be supposed that I include that soft -gypsum--sulphate of lime--which masquerades under the name of alabaster, -and is carved with the tools of a woodcarver, supplemented by a drill -and a file, in many forms by Italian craftsmen. This material will last -in the open air very little longer than the plaster of Paris, by which -its numerous component parts are held together. It is worth nothing. -True alabaster is quite a different substance. It is carbonate of lime -and disintegrates very slowly. The tomb of Machiavelli in the Santa -Croce in Florence is of the true alabaster, as are all the fifteenth and -sixteenth century sarcophagi in the same quarter of the church; but none -can be said to have suffered materially. It was widely used in memorial -tablets three hundred or four hundred years ago. Shakespeare makes -Othello refer to the sleeping Desdemona,-- - - “That whiter skin of hers than snow, - - And smooth as monumental alabaster.” - -We know that it was the musical word “alabaster” that found favour with -Shakespeare, just as it was, according to Miss Ethel Smyth, Mus. Doc., -the musical word “Tipperary,” that helped to make a song containing -that word a favourite with Shakespeare's countrymen, who have never been -found lacking in appreciation of a musical word or a rag-time inanity. - - - - -CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH - -Again may I beg leave to express the opinion that there is no need for -any one to depend upon conventional ornaments with a view to make the -garden interesting as well as ornamental. With a little imagination, -one can introduce quite a number of details that are absolutely unique. -There is nothing that looks better than an arch made out of an old stone -doorway. It may be surmounted by a properly supported shield carved with -a crest or a monogram. A rose pillar of stone has a charming appearance -at the end of a vista. The most effective I have seen were made of -artificial stone, and they cost very little. Many of the finest garden -figures of the eighteenth century were made of this kind of cement, -only inferior in many respects to the modern “artificial stone.” It is -unnecessary to say that any material that resists frost will survive -that comparatively soft stone work which goes from bad to worse year by -year in the open. - -But I do not think that, while great freedom and independence should be -shown in the introduction of ornamental work, one should ever go so far -as to construct in cold blood a ruin of any sort, nor is there any need, -I think, to try to make a new piece look antique. - -But I have actually known of a figure being deprived of one of its -arms in order to increase its resemblance to the Venus of the island -of Milos! Such mutilation is unwarrantable. I have known of Doctors of -Medicine taking pains to make their heads bald, in compliance with the -decrepit notion that knowledge was inseparable from a venerable age. -There may be an excuse for such a proceeding, though to my mind this -posturing lacks only two letters to be imposturing; but no excuse can -be found for breaking the corner off a piece of moulding or for treating -a stone figure with chemicals in order to suggest antiquity. Such -dealers as possess a clientele worth maintaining, know that a thing “in -mint condition,” as they describe it, is worth more than a similar -thing that is deficient in any way. That old story about the artificial -worm-eating will not be credited by any one who is aware of the fact -that a piece of woodwork showing signs of the ravages of the wood moth -is practically worthless. There would be some sense in a story of a man -coming to a dealer with a composition to prevent worm-holes, as they are -called, being recognised. Ten thousand pounds would not be too much to -pay for a discovery that would prevent woodwork from being devoured by -this abominable thing. Surely some of the Pasteur professors should be -equal to the task of producing a serum by which living timber might be -inoculated so as to make it immune to such attacks, or liable only to -the disease in a mild form. - -But there are dealers in antiques whose dealings are as doubtful as -their Pentateuch (according to Bishop Colenso's researches). Heywood -tells me that he came across such an one in a popular seaside town which -became a modern Hebrew City of Refuge, mentioned in one of the Mosaic -books, during the air raids. This person had for sale a Highland -claidh-earnh-mdr--that is, I can assure you, the proper way to spell -claymore--which he affirmed had once belonged to the Young Pretender. -There it was, with his initials “Y. P.,” damascened upon the blade, to -show that there could be no doubt about it. - -And Friswell remembered hearing of another enterprising trader in -antiquities who had bought from a poor old captain of an American whaler -a sailor's jack-knife--Thackeray called the weapon a snickersnee--which -bore on the handle in plain letters the name “Jonah,” very creditably -carved. Everybody knows that whales live to a very great age; and it -has never been suggested that there was at any time a clearing-house for -whales. - -I repeat that there is no need for garden ornaments to be ancient; but -if one must have such things, one should have no difficulty in finding -them, even without spending enormous sums to acquire them. But say -that one has set one's heart upon having a stone bench, which always -furnishes a garden, no matter what its character may be. Well, I have -bought a big stone slab--it had once been a step--for five shillings. -I kept it until I chanced to see a damaged Portland truss that -had supported a heavy joist in some building. This I had sawn into -two--there was a well-cut scroll on each side--and by placing these bits -in position and laying my slab upon them, I concocted a very imposing -garden bench for thirteen shillings. If I had bought the same already -made up in the ordinary course of business, it would have cost me at -least £5. If I had seen the thing in a mason's yard, I would have bought -it at this price. - -Again, I came upon an old capital of a pillar that had once been in an -Early Norman church--it was in the backyard of a man from whom I was -buying bulbs. I told the man that I would like it, and he said he -thought half a crown was about its value. I did not try to beat him -down--one never gets a bargain by beating a tradesman down--and I set -to work rummaging through his premises. In ten minutes I had discovered a -second capital; and the good fellow said I might have this one as I -had found it. I thought it better, however, to make the transaction a -business one, so I paid my second half-crown for it. But two years had -passed before I found two stone shafts with an aged look, and on these -I placed my Norman relics. They look very well in the embrace of a -Hiawatha rose against a background of old wall. These are but a few -of the “made-ups” which furnish my House Garden, not one of which I -acquired in what some people would term the legitimate way. - -I have a large carved seat of Sicilian marble, another of “dove” marble, -and three others of carved stone, and no one of them was acquired by me -in a complete state. Why should not a man or woman who has some training -in art and who has seen the best architectural things in the world -be able to design something that will be equal to the best in a -stonemason's yard, I should like to know? - -And then, what about the pleasure of working out such details--the -pleasure and the profit of it? Surely they count for something in this -life of ours. - -Before I forsake the fascinating topic of stonework, I should like -to make a suggestion which I trust will commend itself to some of my -readers. It is that of hanging appropriate texts on the walls of a -garden. I have not attempted anything like this myself, but I shall -certainly do it some day. Garden texts exist in abundance, and to have -one carved upon a simple block of stone and inserted in a wall would, I -think, add greatly to the interest of the garden. I have seen a couple -of such inscriptions in a garden near Florence, and I fancy that in the -Lake District of England the custom found favour, or Wordsworth would -not have written so many as he did for his friends. The “lettering”--the -technical name for inscriptions--would run into money if a poet paid by -piece-work were employed; unless he were as considerate as the one who -did some beautiful tombstone poems and thought that,-- - - “Beneath this stone repose the bones, together with the - - corp, - - Of one who ere Death cut him down was Thomas Andrew - - Thorpe,” - -was good; and so it was; but as the widow was not disposed to spend so -much as the “lettering” would cost, he reduced his verse to:-- - - Beneath this stone there lies the corp - - Of Mr. Thomas Andrew Thorpe.” - -Still the widow shook her head and begged him to give the question of a -further curtailment his consideration. He did so, and produced,-- - - “Here lies the corp - - Of T. A. Thorpe.” - -This was a move in the right direction, the heartbroken relict thought; -still if the sentiment, was so compressible, it might be further -reduced. Flowery language was all very well, but was it worth the extra -money? The result of her appeal was,-- - - “Thorpe's - - Corpse.” - -I found some perfect garden texts in every volume I glanced through, -from Marlowe to Masefield. - -Yes, I shall certainly revive on some of my walls, between the tufts of -snapdragon, a delightful practice, feeling assured that the crop will -flower in many directions. The search for the neatest lines will of -itself be stimulating. - -But among the suitable objects for the embellishment of any form of -garden, I should not recommend any form of dog. We have not completed -our repairing of one of our borders since a visit was paid to us quite -unexpectedly by a young foxhound that was being “walked” by a dealer in -horses, who has stables a little distance beyond the Castle. Our third -little girl, Francie by name, has an overwhelming sympathy for animals -in captivity, especially dogs, and the fact that I do not keep any since -I had an unhappy experience with a mastiff several years ago, is not -a barrier to her friendship with “Mongrel, puppy, whelp, or hound, and -curs of low degree” that are freely cursed by motorists in the High -Street; for in Yardley dogs have trained themselves to sleep in the -middle of the road on warm summer days. Almost every afternoon Francie -returns from her walks abroad in the company of two or three of her -borrowed dogs; and if she is at all past her time in setting out from -home, one of them comes up to make inquiries as to the cause of the -delay. - -Some months ago the foxhound, Daffodil, who gallantly prefers being -walked by a little girl, even though she carries no whip, rather than -by a horsey man who is never without a serviceable crop with a lash, -personally conducted a party of three to find out if anything serious -had happened to Francie; and in order to show off before the others, -he took advantage of the garden gate having been left open to enter and -relieve his anxiety. He seemed to have done a good deal of looking round -before he was satisfied that there was no immediate cause for alarm, and -in the course of his stroll he transformed the border, adapting it to -an impromptu design of his own--not without merit, if his aim was a -reproduction of a prairie. - -After an industrious five minutes he received some token of the -gardener's disapproval, and we hope that in a few months the end of our -work of restoration will be well in sight. - -But Nemesis was nearer at hand than that horticultural hound dreamt -of. Yesterday Francie appeared in tears after her walk; and this is -the story of _illo lachrymo_: It appears that the days of Daffodil's -“walking” were over, and he was given an honourable place in the hunt -kennels. The master and a huntsman now and again take the full pack from -their home to the Downs for an outing and bring them through the town on -their way hack. Yesterday such a route-march took place and the hounds -went streaming in open order down the street. No contretemps seemed -likely to mar the success of the outing; but unhappily Daffodil had not -learned to the last page the discipline of the kennels, and when at the -wrong moment Francie came out of the confectioner's shop, she was spied -by her old friend, and he made a rush in front of the huntsman's horse -to the little girl, nearly knocking her down in the exuberance of his -greeting of her. - -Alas! there was “greeting” in the Scotch meaning of the word, when -Daffodil ignored the command of the huntsman and had only eaten five of -the chocolates and an inch or two of the paper bag, when the hailstorm -fell on him.... - -“But once he looked back before he reached the pack,” said Francie -between her sobs--“he looked back at me--you see he had not time to say -'goodbye,' that horrid huntsman was so quick with his lash, and I knew -that that was why poor Daffy looked back--to say 'good-bye'--just his -old look. Oh, I'll save up my birthday money next week and buy him. Poor -Daff! Of course he knew me, and I knew him--I saw him through Miss -Richardson's 'window above the doughnut tray--I knew him among all the -others in the pack.” - -Dorothy comforted her, and she became sufficiently herself again to be -able to eat the remainder of the half-pound of chocolates, forgetting, -in the excitement of the moment, to retain their share for her sisters. - -When they found this out, their expressions of sympathy for the cruel -fate that fell upon Daffodil were turned in another direction. - -They did not make any allowance for the momentary thoughtlessness due to -an emotional nature. - -The question of the purchase of the young hound has not yet been -referred to me; but without venturing too far in prejudging the matter, -I think I may say that that transaction will not be consummated. The -first of whatever inscriptions I may some day put upon my garden wall -will be one in Greek:-- - -[Illustration: 0256] - - - - -CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH - -Dorothy and I were having a chat about some designs in Treillage when -Friswell sauntered into the garden, bringing with him a tine book on the -Influence of Cimabue on the later work of Andrea del Castagno. He -had promised to lend it to me, when in a moment of abstraction I had -professed an interest in the subject. - -Dorothy showed him her sketches of the new scheme, explaining that it -was to act as a screen for fig-tree corner, where the material for a -bonfire had been collecting for some time in view of the Peace that we -saw in our visions of a new heaven and a new earth long promised to the -sons of men. - -Friswell was good enough to approve of the designs. He said he thought -that Treillage would come into its own again before long. He always -liked it, because somehow it made him think of the Bible. - -I did not like that. I shun topics that induce thoughts of the Bible in -Friswell's brain. He is at his worst when thinking and expressing his -thoughts on the Bible, and the worst of his worst is that it is just -then he makes himself interesting. - -But how on earth Treillage and the Bible should become connected in any -man's mind would pass the wit of man to explain. But when the appearance -of my Temple compelled Friswell to think of Oxford Street, London, W., -when his errant memory was carrying him on to the Princess's Theatre, on -whose stage a cardboard thing was built--about as like my Temple as -the late Temple of the Archdiocese of Canterbury was like the late Dr. -Parker of the City Temple. - -“I don't recollect any direct or mystical reference to Treillage in -the Book,” said I, with a leaning toward sarcasm in my tone of voice. -“Perhaps you saw something of the kind on or near the premises of the -Bible Society.” - -“It couldn't be something in a theatre again,” suggested Dorothy. - -“I believe it was on a garden wall in Damascus, but I'm not quite sure,” - said he thoughtfully. “Damascus is a garden city in itself. Thank Heaven -it is safe for some centuries more. That ex-All Highest who had designs -on it would fain have made it Potsdamascus.” - -“He would have done his devil best, pulling down the Treillage you saw -there, because it was too French. Don't you think, Friswell, that you -should try to achieve some sort of Treillage for your memory? You are -constantly sending out shoots that come to nothing for want of something -firm to cling to.” - -“Not a bad notion, by any means,” said he. “But it has been tried by -scores of experts on the science of--I forget the name of the science: I -only know that its first two letters are mn.” - -“Mnemonics,” said Dorothy kindly. - -“What a memory you have!” cried Friswell. “A memory for the word that -means memory. I think most of the artificial memories or helps to memory -are ridiculous. They tell you that if you wish to remember one thing you -must be prepared to recollect half a dozen other things--you are to be -led to your destination by a range of sign-posts.” - -“I shouldn't object to the sign-posts providing that the destination was -worth arriving at,” said I. “But if it's only the front row of the dress -circle at the Princess's Theatre, Oxford Street, London, West--” - -“Or Damascus, Middle East,” he put in, when I paused to breathe. “Yes, -I agree with you; but after all, it wasn't Damascus, but only the -General's house at Gibraltar.” - -“Have mercy on our frail systems, Friswell,” I cried. “'We are but -men, are we!' as Swinburne lilts. Think of our poor heads. Another such -abrupt memory-post and we are undone. How is it with you, my Dorothy?” - -“I seek a guiding hand,” said she. “Come, Mr. Friswell; tell us how a -General at Gib, suggested the Bible to you.” - -“It doesn't seem obvious, does it?” said he. “But it so happened that -the noblest traditions of the Corps of Sappers was maintained by the -General at Gib, in my day. He was mad, married, and a Methodist. He -had been an intimate friend and comrade of Gordon, and he invited -subscriptions from all the garrison for the Palestine Exploration Fund. -He gave monthly lectures on the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, and at -every recurring Feast of Tabernacles he had the elaborate trellis that -compassed about his house, hung with branches of Mosaic trees. That's -the connection--as easily obvious as the origin of sin.” - -[Illustration: 0260] - -“Just about the same,” said I. “Your chain of sign-posts is complete: -Treillage--General--Gibraltar--Gordon--Gospel. That is how you are -irresistibly drawn to think of the Bible when you see a clematis -climbing up a trellis.” - -“My dear,” said Dorothy, “you know that I don't approve of any attempt -at jesting on the subject of the Bible.” - -“I wasn't jesting--only alliterative,” said I. “Surely alliteration is -not jocular.” - -“It's on the border,” she replied with a nod. - -“The Bible is all right if you are only content not to take it too -seriously, my dear lady,” said Friswell. “It does not discourage simple -humour--on the contrary, it contains many examples of the Oriental idea -of fun.” - -“Oh, Mr. Friswell! You will be saying next that it is full of puns,” - said Dorothy. - -“I know of one, and it served as the foundation of the Christian -Church,” said he. - -“My dear Friswell, are you not going too far?” - -“Not a step. The choosing of Peter is the foundation of your Church, and -the authority assumed by its priests. Simon Barjonah, nicknamed Peter, -is one of the most convincingly real characters to be found in any -book, sacred or profane. How any one can read his record and doubt the -inspiration of the Gospels is beyond me. I have been studying -Simon Barjonah for many years--a conceited braggart and a coward--a -blasphemer--maudlin! After he had been cursing and swearing in his -denial of his Master, he went out and wept bitterly. Yes, but he wasn't -man enough to stand by the Son of God--he was not even man enough to -go to the nearest tree and hang himself. Judas Iscariot was a nobler -character than Simon Barjonah, nicknamed Peter.” - -“And what does all this mean, Mr. Friswell?” - -“It means that it's fortunate that Truth is not dependent upon the truth -of its exponents or affected by their falseness,” said he, and so took -his departure. - -We went on with our consideration of our Treillage--after a considerable -silence. But when a silence comes between Dorothy and me it does not -take the form of an impenetrable wall, nor yet that of a yew hedge -with gaps in it; but rather that of a grateful screen of sweet-scented -honeysuckle. It is the silence within a bower of white clematis--the -silence of “heaven's ebon vault studded with stars unutterably -bright”--the silence of the stars which is an unheard melody to such as -have ears to hear. - -“Yes,” said I at last, “I am sure that you are right: an oval centre -from which the laths radiate--that shall be our new trellis.” - -And so it was. - -Our life in the Garden of Peace is, you will perceive, something of what -the catalogues term “of rampant growth.” It is as digressive as a wild -convolvulus. I perceive this now that I have taken to writing about -it. It is not literary, but discursive. It throws out, it may he, the -slenderest of tendrils in one direction; but this “between the bud and -blossom,” sometimes Hies off in another, and the effect of the whole is -pleasantly unforeseen. - -It is about time that we had a firm trellis for the truant tendrils. - -And so I will discourse upon Treillage as a feature of the garden. - -Its effect seems to have been lost sight of for a long time, but happily -within recent years its value as an auxiliary to decoration is being -recognised. I have seen lovely hits in France as well as in Italy. It -is one of the oldest imitations of Nature to be found in connection with -garden-making, and to me it represents exactly what place art should -take in that modification of Nature which we call a garden. We want -everything that grows to be seen to the greatest advantage. Nature grows -rampant climbers, and if we allowed them to continue rampageous, we -should have a jungle instead of a garden; so we agree to give her a -helping band by offering her aspiring children something pleasant to -cling to from the first hour of their sending forth grasping fingers in -search of the right ladder for their ascent. A trellis is like a family -living: it provides a decorative career for at least one member of the -family. - -The usual trellis-work, as it is familiarly called: has the merit of -being cheap--just now it is more than twice the price that it was five -years ago; but still it does not run into a great deal of money unless -it is used riotously, and this, let me say, is the very worst way in -which it could be adapted to its purpose. To fix it all along the face -of a wall of perhaps forty feet in length is to force it to do more than -it should be asked to do. The wall is capable of supporting a climbing -plant without artificial aid. But if the wall is unsightly, it were best -hidden, and the eye can bear a considerable length of simple trellis -without becoming weary. In this connection, however, my experience -forces me to believe that one should shun the “extending” form of -lattice-shaped work, but choose the square-mesh pattern. - -This, however, is only Treillage in its elementary form. If one wishes -to have a truly effective screen offering a number of exquisite outlines -for the entwining of some of the loveliest things that grow, one must go -further in one's choice than the simple diagonals and rectagonals--the -simple verticals and horizontals. The moment that curves are introduced -one gets into a new field of charm, and I know of no means of gaining -better effects than by elaborating this form of joinery as the French -did two centuries ago, before the discovery was made that every form -of art in a garden is inartistic. But possibly if the French -_treillageurs_--for the art had many professors--had been a little -more modest in their claims the landscapests would not have succeeded in -their rebellion. But the _treillageurs_ protested against such beautiful -designs as they turned out being obscured by plants clambering over -them, and they offered in exchange repoussé metal foliage, affirming -that this was incomparably superior to a natural growth. Ordinary -people refused to admit so ridiculous a claim, and a cloud came over -the prospects of these artists. Recently, however, with a truer -rapprochement between the “schools” of garden design, I find several -catalogues of eminent firms illustrating their reproductions of some -beautiful French and Dutch work. - -Personally, I have a furtive sympathy with the conceited Frenchmen. It -seems to me that it would be a great shame to allow the growths upon a -fine piece of Treillage to become so gross as to conceal all the design -of the joinery. Therefore I hold that such ambitious climbers as Dorothy -Perkins or Crimson Rambler should be provided with an unsightly wall -and bade to make it sightly, and that to the more graceful and less -distracting clematis should any first-class woodwork be assigned. This -scheme will give both sides a chance in the summer, and in the winter -there will be before our eyes a beautiful thing to look upon, even -though it is no longer supporting a plant, and so fulfilling the -ostensible object of its existence. - -There should be no limit to the decorative possibilities of the -Treillage lath. A whole building can be constructed on this basis. I -have seen two or three very successful attempts in such a direction -in Holland; and quite enchanting did they seem, overclambered by Dutch -honeysuckle. I learned that all were copied from eighteenth century -designs. I saw another Dutch design in an English garden in the North. - -It took the form of a sheltered and canopied seat. It had a round tower -at each side and a gracefully curved back. The “mesh” used in this -little masterpiece was one of four inches. It was painted in a tint that -looks best of all in garden word--the gray of the _echeveria glauca_, -and the blooms of a beautiful Aglaia rose were playing hide-and-seek -among the laths of the roof. I see no reason why hollow pillars for -roses should not be made on the Treillage principle. I have seen such -pillars supporting the canopied roof of more than one balcony in front -of houses in Brighton and Hove. I fancy that at one time these were -fashionable in such places. In his fine work entitled _The English -Home from Charles I. to George IV._, Mr. J. Alfred Gotch gives two -illustrations of Treillage adapted to balconies. - -But to my mind, its most effective adaptation is in association with a -pergola, especially if near the house. To be sure, if the space to -be filled is considerable, the work for both sides would be somewhat -expensive; but then the cost of such things is very elastic; it is -wholly dependent upon the degrees of elaboration in the design. But in -certain situations a pergola built up in this way may be made to do duty -as an anteroom or a loggia, and as such it gives a good return for an -expenditure of money; and if constructed with substantial uprights--I -should recommend the employment of an iron core an inch in diameter for -these, covered, I need hardly say, with the laths--and painted every -second year, the structure should last for half a century. Sir Laurence -Alma-Tadema carried out a marvellous scheme of this type at his house -in St. John's Wood. It was on a Dutch plan, but was not a copy of any -existing arrangement of gardens. I happen to know that the design was -elaborated by himself and his wife on their leaving his first St. John's -Wood home: it was a model of what may be called “_l'haut Treillage_.” - -Once again I would venture to point out the advantage of having a. -handsome thing to look at during the winter months when an ordinary -pergola looks its worst. - -Regarding pergolas in general a good deal might be written. Their -popularity in England just now is well deserved. There is scarcely a -garden of any dimensions that is reckoned complete unless it encloses -one within its walls. A more admirable means of dividing a ground space -so as to make two gardens of different types, could scarcely be devised, -in the absence of a yew or box growth of hedge; nor could one imagine -a more interesting way of passing from the house to the garden than -beneath such a roof of roses. In this case it should play the part -of one of those “vistas” which were regarded as indispensable in the -eighteenth century. It should have a legitimate entrance and it should -not stop abruptly. If the exigencies of space make for such abruptness, -not a moment's delay there should be in the planting of a large climbing -shrub on each side of the exit so as to embower it, so to speak. A -vase or a short pillar should compel the dividing of the path a little -further on, and the grass verge--I am assuming the most awkward of -exits--should he rounded off in every direction, so as to cause the -ornament to become the feature up to which the pergola path is leading. -I may mention incidentally at this moment that such an isolated ornament -as I have suggested gives a legitimate excuse for dividing any -garden walk that has a tendency to weary the eye by its persistent -straightness. Some years ago no one ever thought it necessary to make -an excuse for a curve in a garden walk. The gardener simply got out his -iron and cut out whatever curve he pleased on each side, and the -thing was done. But nowadays one must have a natural reason for every -deflection in a path; and an obstacle is introduced only to be avoided. - -I need hardly say that there are pergolas and pergolas. I saw one that -cost between two and three thousand pounds in a garden beyond Beaulieu, -between Mont Boron and Monte Carlo--an ideal site. It was made up of -porphyry columns with Corinthian carved capitals and wrought-iron work -of a beautiful design, largely, but not lavishly, gilt, as a sort of -frieze running from pillar to pillar; a bronze vase stood between each -of the panels, and the handles of these were also gilt. I have known of -quite respectable persons creating quite presentable pergolas for less -money. In that favoured part of the world, however, everything bizarre -and extravagant seems to find a place and to look in keeping with its -surroundings. - -The antithesis to this gorgeous and thoroughly beautiful piece of work -I have seen in many gardens in England. It is the “rustic” pergola, a -thing that may be acquired for a couple of pounds and that may, with -attention, last a couple of years. Anything is better than this--no -pergola at all is better than this. In Italy one sees along the -roadsides numbers of these structures overgrown with vines; but never -yet did I see one that was not either in a broken-down condition or -rapidly approaching such a condition; although the poles are usually -made of chestnut which should last a long time--unlike our larch, the -life of which when cut into poles and inserted in the cold earth does not -as a rule go beyond the third year. - -Rut there is something workable in this line between the -three-thousand-pounder of the Riviera, and the three-pounder of Clapham. -If people will only keep their eyes open for posts suitable for the -pillars of a pergola, they will be able to collect a sufficient number -to make a start with inside a year. The remainder of the woodwork I -should recommend being brought already shaped and creosoted from some of -those large sawmills where such work is made a speciality of. But there -is no use getting anything that is not strong and durable, and every -upright pillar should be embedded in concrete or cement. For one of -my own pergolas--I do not call them pergolas but colonnades--I found a -disused telegraph pole and sawed it into lengths of thirty inches each. -These I sank eighteen inches in the ground at regular intervals and on -each I doweled two oak poles six inches in diameter. They are standing -well; for telegraph posts which have been properly treated are nearly as -durable as iron. All the woodwork for this I got ready sawn and “dipped” - from a well-known factory at Croydon. It is eighty feet long and paved -throughout. One man was able to put it up inside a fine fortnight in the -month of January. - -A second colonnade that I have is under forty feet in length. I made -one side of it against a screen of sweetbrier roses which had grown to -a height of twenty feet in five years. The making of it was suggested -to me by the chance I had of buying at housebreaker's price a number -of little columns taken from a shop that was being pulled down to give -place, as usual, to a new cinema palace. - -An amusing sidelight upon the imperiousness of fashion was afforded us -when the painter set to work upon these. They had once been treated in -that form of decoration known as “oak grained”--that pale yellow colour -touched with an implement technically called a comb, professing to give -to ordinary deal the appearance of British oak, and possibly deceiving a -person here and there who had never seen oak. But when my painter began -to burn off this stuff he discovered that the column had actually been -papered and then painted and grained. This made his work easy, for he -was able to tear the paper away in strips. But when he had done this he -made the further discovery that the wood underneath was good oak with a -natural grain showing! - -Could anything be more ridiculous than the fashion of sixty or seventy -years ago, when the art of graining had reached its highest level? Here -were beautiful oak columns which only required to be waxed to display -to full advantage the graceful natural “feathering” of the wood, papered -over and then put into the hands of the artist to make it by his process -of “oak-graining” as unlike oak as the basilica of St. Mark is unlike -Westminster Abbey! - -But for a large garden where everything is on a heroic scale, the only -suitable pergola is one made up of high brick or stone piers, with -massive oak beams for the roof. Such a structure will last for a century -or two, improving year by year. The only question to consider is the -proper proportions that it should assume--the relations of the length -to the breadth and to the height. On such points I dare not speak. The -architect who has had experience of such structures must be consulted. -I have seen some that have been carried out without reference to the -profession, and to my mind their proportions were not right. One had the -semblance of being stunted, another was certainly not sufficiently broad -by at least two feet. - -In this connection I may be pardoned if I give it as my opinion that -most pergolas suffer from lack of breadth. Six feet is the narrowest -breadth possible for one that is eight feet high to the cross beams. -I think that a pergola in England should be paved, not in that -contemptible fashion, properly termed “crazy,” but with either stone -slabs or paving tiles; if one can afford to have the work done in -panels, so much the better. In this way nothing looks better than small -bricks set in herring-bone patterns. If one can afford a course of -coloured bricks, so much the better. The riotous gaiety of colour -overhead should be responded to in some measure underfoot. - -There is no reason against, but many strong reasons for, interrupting -the lines of a long pergola by making a dome of open woodwork between -the four middle columns of support--assuming that all the rest of the -woodwork is straight---and creating a curved alcove with a seat between -the two back supports, thus forming at very little extra expense, an -additional bower to the others which will come into existence year by -year in a garden that is properly looked after. - -When I was a schoolboy I was brought by my desk-mate to his father's -place, and escorted round the grounds by his sister, for whom I -cherished a passion that I hoped was not hopeless. This was while my -friend was busy looking after the nets for the lawn tennis. There were -three summer-houses in various parts of the somewhat extensive grounds, -and in every one of them we came quite too suddenly upon a pair of quite -too obvious lovers. - -The sister cicerone hurried past each with averted eyes--after the first -glance--and looked at me and smiled. - -We were turning into another avenue after passing the third of these -love-birds, when she stopped abruptly. - -“We had better not go on any farther,” said she. - -“Oh, why not?” I cried. - -“Well, there's another summer-house down there among the lilacs,” she -replied. - -We stood there while she looked around, plainly in search of a route -that should be less distracting. It was at this moment of indecision -that I gazed at her. I thought that I had never seen her look so -lovely. 1 felt myself trembling. I know that my eyes were fixed upon the -ground--I could not have spoken the words if I had looked up to her--she -was a good head and shoulder taller than I was:-- - -“Look here, Miss Fanny, there may be no one in the last of the -summer-houses. Let us go there and sit--sit--the same as the others.” - -“Oh, no; I should be afraid,” said she. - -“Oh, I swear to you that you shall have no cause, Miss Fanny; I know -what is due to the one you love; you will be quite safe--sacred.” - -“What do you know about the one I love?” she asked--and there was a -smile in her voice. - -“I know the one who loves you,” I said warmly. - -“I'm so glad,” she cried. “I know that he is looking for me everywhere, -and if he found us together in a summer-house he would be sure to kill -you. Captain Tyson is a frightfully jealous man, and you are too nice -a boy to be killed. Do you mind running round by the rhododendrons and -telling Bob that he may wear my tennis shoes to-day? I got a new pair -yesterday.” - -I went slowly toward the rhododendrons. When I got beyond their shelter -I looked back. - -I did not see her, but I saw the sprightly figure of a naval man -crossing the grass toward where I had left her, and I knew him to be -Commander Tyson, R.N. - -Their second son is Commander Tyson, R. N., today. - -But from that hour I made up my mind that a properly designed garden -should have at least five summer-houses. - -I have just made my fifth. - - - - -CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH - -I am sure that the most peaceful part of our Garden of Peace is the -Place of Roses. The place of roses in the time of roses is one bower. -It grew out of the orchard ground which I had turned into a lawn in -exchange for the grassy space which I had turned into the House Garden. -The grass came very rapidly when I had grubbed up the roots of the old -plums and cherries. But then we found that the stone-edged beds and the -central fountain had not really taken possession, so to speak, of -the House Garden. This had still the character of a lawn for all its -bedding, and could not be mown in less than two hours. - -And just as I was becoming impressed with this fact, a gentle general -dealer came to me with the inquiry f a tall wooden pillar would be of -any use to me. I could not tell him until I had seen it, and when I had -seen it and bought it and had it conveyed home I could not tell him. - -It was a fluted column of wood, nearly twenty feet high and two in -diameter, with a base and a carved Corinthian capital--quite an imposing -object, but, as usual, the people at the auction were so startled by -having brought before them something to which they were unaccustomed, -they would not make a bid for it, and my dealer, who has brought me many -an embarrassing treasure, got it fur the ten shillings at which he had -started it. - -It lay on the grass where it had been left by the carters, giving to the -landscape for a whole week the semblance of the place of the Parthenon -or the Acropolis; but on the seventh day I clearly saw that one cannot -possess a white elephant without making some sacrifices for that -distinction, and I resolved to sacrifice the new lawn to my hasty -purchase. There are few things in the world dearer than a bargain, and -none more irresistible. Rut, as it turned out, this was altogether an -exceptional thing--as a matter of fact, all my bargains are. I made it -stand in the centre of the lawn and I saw the place transformed. - -It occupied no more than a patch less than a yard 'n diameter; but it -dominated the whole neighbourhood. On one side of the place there is -a range of shrubs on a small mound, making people who stand by the new -pend of water-lilies believe that they have come to the bottom of the -garden; on another side is the old Saxon earthwork, now turned into an -expanse of things herbaceous, with a long curved grass path under the -ancient castle walls; down the full length of the third side runs a -pergola, giving no one a glimpse of a great breadth of rose-beds or of -the colonnade beyond, where the sweet-briers have their own way. - -There was no reason that I could see (now that I had set my heart on the -scheme) why I should not set up a gigantic rose pillar in the centre of -the lawn and see what would happen. - -[Illustration: 0278] - -What actually did happen before another year had passed was the erecting -of a tall pillar which looked so lonely in the midst of the grass--a -lighthouse marking a shoal in a green sea--that I made four large -round beds about it, at a distance of about twenty feet, and set up -a nine-foot pillar in the centre of each, planting climbing roses of -various sorts around it, hoping that in due time the whole should be -incorporated and form a ring of roses about the towering centre column. - -It really took no more than two years to bring to fruition my most -sanguine hopes, and now there are four rose-tents with hundreds of -prolific shoots above the apex of each, clinging with eager fingers -to the wires which I have brought to them from the top of the central -pillar, and threatening in time to form a complete canopy between forty -and fifty feet in diameter. - -In the shade of these ambitious things one sits in what I say is the -most peaceful part of the whole place of peace. Even “winter and rough -weather” may be regarded with complacency from the well-sheltered seats; -and every year toward the end of November Rosamund brings into the house -some big sprays of ramblers and asks her mother if there is any boracic -lint handy. He jests at scars who never felt an Ards Rover scrape down -his arm in resisting lawful arrest. But in July and August, looking -down upon the growing canopy from the grass walk above the herbaceous -terrace, is like realising Byron's awful longing for all the rosy lips -of all the rosy girls in the world to “become one mouth” in order that -he might “kiss them all at once from North to South.” There they are, -thousands and tens of thousands of rosy mouths; but not for kisses, even -separately. Heywood, who, being a painter, is a thoroughly trustworthy -consultant on all artistic matters, assures me that Byron was a fool, -and that his longing for a unification of a million moments of æsthetic -delight was unworthy of his reputation. There may be something in this. -I am content to look down upon our eager roses with no more of a longing -than that September were as far off as Christmas. - -It was our antiquarian neighbour who, walking on the terrace one day -in mid-July, told us of a beautiful poem which he had just seen in the -customary corner of the _Gazette_--the full name of the paper is _The -Yardley Gazette, East Longuorth Chronicle, and Nethershire Observer_, -but one would no more think of giving it all its titles in ordinary -conversation than of giving the Duke of Wellington all his. It is with -us as much the _Gazette_ as if no other Gazette had ever been published. -But it prints a copy of verses, ancient or modern, every week, and our -friend had got hold of a gem. The roses reminded him of it He could only -recollect the first two lines, but they were striking:-- - - “There's a bower of rose by Bendameer's stream - - And the nightingale sings in it all the night long.” - -Bendameer was some place in China, he thought, or perhaps Japan--but for -the matter of that it might not be a real locality, but merely a place -invented by the poet. Anyhow, he would in future call the terrace walk -Bendameer, for could any one imagine a finer bower of roses than that -beneath us? He did not believe that Bendameer could beat it. - -If our friend had talked to Sir Foster Fraser--the only person I ever -met who had been to Bendameer's stream--he might have expressed his -belief much more enthusiastically. On returning from his bicycle tour -round the world, and somewhat disillusioned by the East, ready to affirm -that fifty years of Europe were better than a cycle in Cathay, he told -me that Bendameer's stream was a complete fraud. It was nothing but a -muddy puddle oozing its way through an uninteresting district. - -In accordance with our rule, neither Dorothy nor I went further than to -confess that the lines were very sweet. - -“I'll get you a copy with pleasure,” he cried. “I knew you would like -them, you are both so literary; and you know how literary I am myself--I -cut out all the poems that appear in the _Gazette_. It's a hobby, and -elevating. I suppose you don't think it possible to combine antiquarian -tastes and poetical.” Dorothy assured him that she could see a distinct -connection between the two; and he went on: “There was another about -roses the week before. The editor is clearly a man of taste, and he puts -in only things that are appropriate to the season. The other one was -about a garden--quite pretty, only perhaps a little vague. I could not -quite make out what it meant at places; but I intend to get it off by -heart, so I wrote it down in iny pocket-book. Here it is:-- - - “Rosy is the north, - - Rosy is the south, - - Rosy are her cheeks - - And a rose her mouth.” - -Now what do you think of it? I call it very pretty--not so good, on -the whole, as the bower of roses by Bendameer's stream, but still quite -nice. You would not be afraid to let one of your little girls read -it--yes, every line.” - -Dorothy said that she would not; but then Dorothy is afraid of -nothing--not even an antiquarian. - -He returned to us the next day with the full text--only embellished with -half a dozen of the _Gazette's_ misprints--of the _Lalla Rookh_ song, -and read it out to us in full, but failing now and again to get into the -lilt of Moore's melodious anapaests--a marvellous feat, considering how -they sing and swing themselves along from line to line. But that was not -enough, He had another story for us--fresh, quite fresh, from the stock -of a brother antiquarian who recollected it, he said, when watching the -players on the bowling-green. - -“I thought I should not lose a minute in coming to you with it,” he -said. “You are so close to the bowling-green here, it should have -additional interest in your eyes. The story is that Nelson was playing -bowls when some one rushed in to say that the Spanish Armada was in -sight. But the news did not put him off his game. 'We'll have plenty of -time to finish our game and beat the Spaniards afterwards,' he cried; -and sure enough he went on with the game to the end. There was a man for -you!” - -“And who won?” asked Dorothy innocently. - -“That's just the question I put to my friend,” he cried. “The story is -plainly unfinished. He did not say whether Nelson and his partner won -his game against the other players; but you may be sure that he did.” - -“He didn't say who was Nelson's partner?” said Dorothy. - -“No, I have told you all that he told me,” he replied. - -“I shouldn't be surprised to hear that his partner was a man named -Drake,” said I. “A senior partner too in that transaction and others. -But the story is a capital one and show's the Englishman as he is -to-day. Why, it was only the year before the war that there was a verse -going about,-- - - 'I was playing golf one day - - When the Germans landed; - - All our men had run away, - - All our ships were stranded. - - And the thought of England's shame - - Almost put me off my game.'” - -Our antiquarian friend looked puzzled for some time; then he shook his -head gravely, saying:-- - -“I don't like that. It's a gross libel upon our brave men--and on our -noble sailors too: I heard some one say in a speech the other day that -there are no better seamen in the world than are in the British Navy. -Our soldiers did not run away, and all our ships were not stranded. It -was one of the German lies to say so. And what I say is that it was very -lucky for the man who wrote that verse that there was a British fleet -to prevent the Germans landing. They never did succeed in landing, I'm -sure, though I was talking to a man who had it on good authority that -there were five U-boats beginning to disembark some crack regiments of -Hun cavalry when a British man-o'-war--one, mind you--a single ship--came -'n sight, and they all bundled back to their blessed U-boats hi double -quick time.” - -“I think you told me about that before,” said I--and he had. “It was -the same person who brought the first news of the Russian troops going -through England--he had seen them on the platform of Crewe stamping off -the snow they had brought on their boots from Archangel; and afterwards -he had been talking with a soldier who had seen the angels at Mons, and -had been ordered home to be one of the shooting party at the Tower of -London, when Prince Louis was court-martialled and sentenced.” - -“Quite true,” he cried. “My God! what an experience for any one man to -go through. But we are living in extraordinary times--that's what I've -never shrunk from saying, no matter who was present--extraordinary -times.” - -I could not but agree with him I did not say that what I thought the -most extraordinary feature of the times was the extraordinary credulity -of so many people. The story of the Mons angels was perhaps the most -remarkable of all the series. A journalist sitting in his office in -London simply introduced in a newspaper article the metaphor of a host -of angels holding up the advancing Germans, and within a week scores of -people in England had talked with soldiers who had seen those imaginary -angels and were ready to give a poulterer's description of them, as -Sheridan said some one would do if he introduced the Phoenix into his -Drury Lane Address. - -It was no use the journalist explaining that his angels were purely -imaginary ones; people said, when you pointed this out to them:-- - -“That may be so; but these were the angels he imagined.” - -Clergymen preached beautiful sermons on the angel host; and I heard of a -man who sold for half a crown a feather which had dropped from the wing -of one of the angels who had come on duty before he had quite got over -his moult. - -When Dorothy heard this she said she was sure that it was no British -soldier who had shown the white feather in France during that awful -time. - -“If they were imaginary angels, the white feather must have been -imaginary too,” said Olive, the practical one. - -“One of the earliest of angel observers was an ass, and the tradition -has been carefully adhered to ever since,” said Friswell, and after that -there was, of course, no use talking further. - -But when we were still laughing over our antiquarian and his novelties -in the form of verse and anecdote, Friswell himself appeared with a -newspaper in his hand, and he too was laughing. - -It was over the touching letter of an actress to her errant husband, -entreating him to return and all would be forgiven. I had read it and -smiled; so had Dorothy, and wept. - -But it really was a beautiful letter, and I said so to Friswell. - -“It is the most beautiful of the four actresses' letters to errant -spouses for Divorce Court purposes that I have read within the past few -months,” said he. “But they are all beautiful--all touching. It makes -one almost ready to condone the sin that results in such an addition to -the literature of the Law Courts. I wonder who is the best person to go -to for such a letter--some men must make a speciality of that sort of -work to meet the demands of the time. But wouldn't it be dreadful if the -errant husband became so convicted of his trespass through reading the -wife's appeal to return, that he burst into tears, called a taxi and -drove home! But these Divorce Court pleading letters are of great value -professionally they have quite blanketed the old lost jewel-case stunt -as a draw. I was present and assisted in the reception given by the -audience to the lady whose beautiful letter had appeared in the paper in -the morning. She was overwhelmed. She had made up pale in view of that -reception; and there was something in her throat that prevented her from -going on with her words for some time. The 'poor things!' that one heard -on all sides showed how truly sympathetic is a British audience.” - -“I refuse to listen to your cynicism,” cried Dorothy; “I prefer to -believe that people are good rather than bad.” - -“And so do I, my dear lady,” said he, laughing. “But don't you see that -if you prefer to think good of all people, you cannot exclude the poor -husband of the complete letter-writer, and if you believe good of him -and not bad, you must believe that his charming wife is behaving badly -in trying to get a divorce.” - -“She doesn't want a divorce: she wants him to come back to her and -writes to him begging him to do so,” said she. - -“And such a touching letter too,” I added. - -“I have always found 'the profession,' as they call themselves, more -touchy than touching,” said he. “But I admit that I never was so touched -as when, at the funeral of a brother artist, the leading actor of -that day walked behind the coffin with the brokenhearted widow of the -deceased on his right arm and the broken-hearted mistress on the left. -Talk of stage pathos!” - -“For my part, I shall do nothing of the sort,” said I sharply. “I think, -Friswell, that you sometimes forget that it was you who gave this place -the name of A Garden of Peace. You introduce controversial topics--The -Actor is the title of one of these, The Actress is the title of the -other. Let us have done with them, and talk poetry instead.” - -“Lord of the Garden of Peace! as if poetry was the antithesis of -polemics--verses of controversies!” cried he. “Never mind! give us a -poem--of The Peace.” - -“I wish I could,” said I. “The two copies of verses which, as you know, -without having read them, I contributed to the literature--I mean the -writings--in connection with the war could scarcely be called pacific.” - -“They were quite an effective medium for getting rid of his superfluous -steam,” said Dorothy to him. “I made no attempt to prevent his writing -them.” - -“It would have been like sitting on the safety-valve, wouldn't it?” said -he. “I think that literature would not have suffered materially if -a good number of safety-valves had been sat upon by stouter wives of -metre-engineers than you will ever be, O guardian lady of the Garden of -Peace! The poets of the present hour have got much to recommend them to -the kindly notice of readers of taste, but they have all fallen short -of the true war note on their bugles. Perhaps when they begin to pipe of -peace they will show themselves better masters of the reed than of the -conch.” - -“Whatever some of them may be----” I began, when he broke in. - -“Say some of _us_, my friend: you can't dissociate yourself from your -pals in the dock: you will be sentenced _en bloc_, believe me.” - -“Well, whatever _we_ may be we make a better show than the Marlborough -Muses or the Wellington or the Nelson Muses did. What would be thought -of _The Campaign_ if it were to appear to-morrow, I wonder. But it -did more in advancing the interests of Addison than the complete -_Spectator_.” - -“Yes, although some feeble folk did consider that one hit of it was -verging on the blasphemous--that about riding on the whirlwind and -directing the storm,” remarked Friswell; he had a good memory for things -verging on the blasphemous. - -“The best war poem is the one that puts into literary form the man in -the street yelling 'hurrah!'” said I. “If the shout is not spontaneous, -it sounds stilted and it is worthless.” - -“I believe you,” said Friswell. “If your verse does not find an echo in -the heart of the rabble that run after a soldiers' band, it is but as -the sounding brass and tinkling cymbals that crash on the empty air. But -touching the poets of past campaigns----” - -“I was thinking of Scott's _Waterloo_,” said I; “yes, and Byron's -stanzas in _Childe Harold_, and somebody's '_Twas in Trafalgar's Bay, We -saw the Frenchmen lay_--'the Frenchmen lav,' mind you--that's the most -popular of all the lays, thanks to Braham's music and Braham's tenor -that gave it a start. I think we have done better than any of those.” - -“But have you done better than _Scot's what hae act Wallace hied? or of -Nelson and the North, Sing the glorious day's renown? or Ye Mariners -of England, That guard our native seas? or not a drum was heard or a -funeral note?_--I doubt it. And to come down to a later period, what -about the lilt of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, by one Tennyson? Will -any of the poems of 1914 show the same vitality as these?” - -“The vital test of poetry is not its vitality,” said I, “any more than -being a best-seller is a test of a good novel. But I think that when a -winnowing of the recent harvest takes place in a year or two, when we -become more critical than is possible for a people just emerging from -the flames that make us all see red, you will find that the harvest -of sound poetry will be a record one. We have still the roar of the -thunderstorm in our cars; when an earthquake is just over is not -the time for one to be asked to say whether the _Pathétique_ or the -_Moonlight_ Sonata is the more exquisite.” - -“Perhaps,” said Friswell doubtfully. “But I allow that you have 'jined -your flats' better than Tennyson did. The unutterable vulgarity of -that 'gallant six hunderd,' because it happened that 'some one had -blundered,' instead of 'blundred,' will not be found in the Armageddon -band of buglers. But I don't believe that anything so finished as -Wolfe's _Burial of Sir John Moore_ will come to the surface of the -melting-pot--I think that the melting-pot suggests more than -your harvest. Your harvest hints at the swords being turned into -ploughshares; my melting-pot at the bugles being thrown into the -crucible. What have you to say about 'Not a drum was heard'?” - -“That poem is the finest elegy ever written,” said I definitely. -“The author, James Wolfe, occupies the place among elegists that -single-speech Hamilton does among orators, or Liddell and Scott in a -library of humour. From the first line to the last, no false note is -sounded in that magnificent funeral march. It is one grand monotone -throughout. It cannot be spoken except in a low monotone. It never rises -and it never falls until the last line is reached, 'We left him alone in -his glory.'” - -“And the strangest thing about it is that it appeared first in -the poets' corner of a wretched little Irish newspaper--the _Newry -Telegraph_, I believe it was called,” said Dorothy--it was Dorothy's -reading of the poem that first impressed me with its beauty. - -“The more obscure the crypt in which its body was burned, the more--the -more--I can't just express the idea that I'm groping after,” said -Friswell. - -“I should like to help you,” said Dorothy. “Strike a match for me, and -I'll try to follow you out of the gloom.” - -“It's something like this: the poem itself seems to lead you into -the gloom of a tomb, so that there is nothing incongruous in its -disappearing into the obscurity of a corner of a wretched rag of a -newspaper--queer impression for any one to have about such a thing, -isn't it?” - -“Queer, but--well, it was but the body that was buried, the soul of the -poetry could not be consigned to the sepulchre, even though 'Resurgam' -was cut upon the stone.” - -“You have strolled away from me, said I. All that I was thinking about -Wolfe and that blessed _Newry Telegraph_, was expressed quite adequately -by the writer of another Elegy:-- - - “Full many a gem of purest ray serene, - - The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; - - Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, - - And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” - -That was a trite reflection; and as apposite as yours, Friswell; unless -you go on to assume that through the desert air there buzzed a bee to -carry off the soul of the blushing flower and cause it to fertilise a -whole garden, so that the desert was made to blossom like the rose.” - -“Who was the bee that rescued the poem from the desert sheet that -enshrouded it?” asked Dorothy. - -“I have never heard,” I said, nor had Friswell. - -There was a long pause before he gave a laugh, saying-- - -“I wonder if you will kick me out of your garden when I tell you the -funny analogy to all this that the mention of the word desert forced -upon me.” - -“Try us,” said 1. “We know you.” - -“The thought that I had was that there are more busy bees at work than -one would suppose; and the mention of the desert recalled to my mind -what I read somewhere of the remarkable optimism of a flea which a man -found on his foot after crossing the desert of the Sahara. It had lived -on in the sand, goodness knows how long, on the chance of some animal -passing within the radius of a leap and so carrying it back to a -congenial and not too rasorial a civilisation. How many thousand million -chances to one there were that it should not be rescued; yet its chance -came at last.” - -“Meaning?” - -“Well, my flea is your bee, and where there are no bees there may be -plenty of fleas.” - -“Yes; only my bee comes with healing in its wings, and your flea is the -bearer of disease,” said I; and I knew that I had got the better of him -there, though I was not so sure that he knew it. - -Friswell is a queer mixture. - -After another pause, he said,-- - -“By the way, the mention of Campbell and his group brought back to -me one of the most popular of the poems of the period--_Lord Ullin's -Daughter_.--You recollect it, of course.” - -“A line or two.” - -“Well, it begins, you know:-- - - “A chieftain to the Highlands bound, - - Cries, 'Boatman, do not tarry, - - And I'll give thee a silver pound, - - To row us o'er the ferry.' - -Now, for long I felt that it was too great a strain upon our credulity -to ask us to accept the statement that a Scotsman would offer a ferryman -a pound for a job of the market value of a bawbee; but all at once the -truth flashed upon me: the pound was a pound Scots, or one shilling and -eightpence of our money. You see?” - -“Yes, I see,” said Dorothy; “but still it sounds extravagant. A Highland -Chief--one and eight-pence! The ferryman never would have got it.” - -I fancied that we had exhausted some of the most vital questions bearing -upon the questionable poetry of the present and the unquestionable -poetry of the past; but I was mistaken; for after dinner I had a visit -from Mr. Gilbert. - -But I must give Mr. Gilbert a little chapter to himself. - - - - -CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST - -Of course I had known for a long time that Mr. Gilbert was “quite a -superior man”--that was the phrase in which the Rural Dean referred to -him when recommending me to apply to him for information respecting a -recalcitrant orchid which had refused one year to do what it had been -doing the year before. He was indeed “quite a superior man,” but being -a florist he could never be superior to his business. No man can be -superior to a florist, when the florist is an orchidtect as well. I went -to Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Gilbert came to me, and all was right. That was -long ago. We talked orchids all through that year and then, by way -of lightening our theme, we began to talk of roses and such like -frivolities, but everything he said was said in perfect taste. Though -naturally, living his life on terms of absolute intimacy with orchids, -he could not regard roses seriously, yet I never heard him say a -disrespectful word about them: he gave me to understand that he regarded -the majority of rosarians as quite harmless--they had their hobby, and -why should they not indulge in it, he asked. “After all, rosarians are -God's creatures like the rest of us,” he said, with a tolerant smile. -And I must confess that, for all my knowledge of his being a superior man, -he startled me a little by adding,-- - -“The orchid is epic and the rose lyric, sir; but every one knows how -an incidental lyric lightens up the hundred pages of an epic. Oh, yes, -roses have their place in a properly organised horticultural scheme.” - -“I believe you are right, now that I come to look at the matter in that -light,” said I. “You find a relaxation in reading poetry?” I added. - -“I have made a point of reading some verses every night for the past -twenty-five years, sir,” he replied. “I find that's the only way by -which I can keep myself up to the mark.” - -“I can quite understand that,” said I. “Flowers are the lyrics that, as -you say, lighten the great epic of Creation. Where would our poets be -without their flowers?” - -“They make their first appeal to the poet, sir; but the worst of it -is that every one who can string together a few lines about a flower -believes himself to be a poet. No class of men have treated flowers -worse than our poets even the best of them are so vague in their -references to flowers as to irritate me.” - -“In what way, Mr. Gilbert?” - -“Well, you know, sir, they will never tell us plainly just what they are -driving at. For instance we were speaking of roses, just now--well, we -have roses and roses by the score in poems; but how seldom do we find -the roses specified! There's Matthew Arnold, for example; he wrote -“Strew on her roses, roses”; but he did not say whether he wanted her -to be strewn With hybrid teas, Wichuraianas, or poly-anthas. He does not -even suggest the colour. Now, could anything be more vague? It makes -one believe that he was quite indifferent on the point, which would, -of course, be doing him a great injustice: all these funeral orders are -specified, down to the last violets and Stephanotis. Then we have, “It -was the time of roses”--now, there's another ridiculously vague phrase. -Why could the poet not have said whether he had in his mind the ordinary -brier or an autumn-flowering William Allen Richardson or a Gloire de -Dijon? But that is not nearly so irritating as Tennyson is in places. -You remember his “Flower in the crannied wall.” There he leaves a -reader in doubt as to what the plant really was. If it was Saracta -Hapelioides, he should have called it a herb, or if it was simply the -ordinary Scolopendrium marginatum he should have called it a fern. If -it was one of the _Saxifrageo_ he left his readers quite a bewildering -choice. My own impression is that it belonged to the _Evaizoonia_ -section--probably the _Aizoon sempervivoides_. though it really might -have been the _cartilaginea_. Why should we be left to puzzle over -the thing? But for that matter, both Shakespeare and Milton are most -flagrant offenders, though I acknowledge that the former now and again -specifies his roses: the musk and damask were his favourites. But why -should he not say whether it was _Thymus Scrpyllum or atropurpureus_ he -alluded to on that bank? He merely says, “Whereon the wild thyme blows.” - It is really that vagueness, that absence of simplicity--which has made -poetry so unpopular. Then think of the trouble it must be to a foreigner -when lie comes upon a line comparing a maiden to a lily, without -saying what particular _lilium_ is meant. An Indian squaw is like a -lily--_lilium Brownii_; a Japanese may appropriately be said to be like -the _lilium sulphureum_. Recovering from a severe attack of measles a -young woman suggests _lilium speciosum_; but that is just the moment -when she makes a poor appeal to a poet. To say that a maiden is like a -lily conveys nothing definite to the mind; but that sort of neutrality -is preferable to the creation of a false impression, so doing her a -great injustice by suggesting it may be that her complexion is a bright -orange picked out with spots of purple.” - -That was what our Mr. Gilbert said to me more than a year ago; and now -he comes to me before I have quite recovered from the effects of -that discussion with Friswell, and after a few professional remarks -respecting a new orchid acquisition, begins: “Might I take the liberty -of reading you a little thing which I wrote last night as an experiment -in the direction of the reform I advocated a year ago when referring to -the vagueness of poets' flowers? I don't say that the verses have any -poetical merit; but I claim for them a definiteness and a lucidity that -should appeal to all readers who, like myself, are tired of slovenly and -loose way in which poets drag flowers into their compositions.” - -1 assured him that nothing would give me greater pleasure than to hear -his poem; and he thanked me and said that the title was, _The Florist to -his Bride._ This was his poem:-- - - Do you remember, dearest, that wild eve, - - When March came blustering; o'er the land? - - We stood together, hand in hand, - - Watching the slate-gray waters heave-- - - Hearing despairing boughs behind us grieve. - - It seemed as I, no forest voice was dumb. - - All Nature joining in one cry; - - The Ampélopsis Veitchii, - - Giving gray hints of green to come, - - Shrank o'er the leafless Prunus Avium. - - Desolate seemed the grove of Comferia, - - Evergreen as deciduous; - - Hopeless the hour seemed unto us; - - Helpless our beauteous Cryptomeria-- - - Helpless in Winter's clutch our Koelreuteria. - - We stood beneath our Ulmus Gracilis, - - And watched the tempest-tom Fitzroya, - - And shaken than the stout Sequoia; - - And yet I knew in spite of this, - - Your heart was hopeful of the Springtide's kiss. - - Yours was the faith of woman, dearest child. - - Your eyes--Centaurea Cyavus-- - - Saw what I saw not nigh to us, - - And that, I knew, was why you smiled, - - When the Montana Pendula swung wild. - - I knew you smiled, thinking of suns to come, - - Seeing in snowflakes on bare trees - - Solanum Jasminoïdes-- - - Seeing ere Winter's voice was dumb, - - The peeping pink Mesembrianthium. - - I knew you saw as if they flowered before us, - - The sweet Rhoilora Canadensis, - - The lush Wistaria Sinensis, - - The Lepsosiphon Densifiorvs-- - - All flowers that swell the Summer's colour-chorus. - - And, lightened by your smile, I saw, my Alice, - - The modest Résida Odorata-- - - Linaria Reticulata-- - - I drank the sweets of Summer's chalice, - - Sparkling Calendula Officinalis. - - To me your smile brought sunshine that gray day, - - The saddest Salex Babylonien - - Became Anemone Japonica - - And the whole world beneath its ray, - - Bloomed one Escholtzia Californico. - - Still in thy smile the summer airs caress us; - - And now with thee my faith is sure: - - The love that binds us shall endure-- - - Nay, growing day by day to bless us, - - Ti'l o'er us waves Supervirens Cupressus. - -“I hope I haven't bored you, sir. I don't pretend to be a poet; but you -see what my aim is, I'm sure--lucidity and accuracy--strict accuracy, -sir. Something that every one can understand.” - -I assured him that he had convinced me that he understood his business: -he was incomparable--as a florist. - - - - -CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND - -Among the features of our gardens for which I am not responsible, is -the grass walk alongside the Castle Wall, where it descends on one side, -by the remains of the terraces of the Duke's hanging gardens, fifty feet -into the original fosse, while on the other it breasts the ancient Saxon -earthwork, which reduces its height to something under fifteen, so that -the wall on our side is quite a low one, but happily of a breadth that -allows of a growth of wild things--lilacs and veronicas and the like--in -beautiful luxuriance, while the face is in itself a garden of crevices -where the wallflowers last long enough to mix with the snapdragons and -scores of modest hyssops and mosses and ferns that lurk in every cranny. - -Was it beneath such a wall that Tennyson stood to wonder how he should -fulfil the commission he had received from _Good Words_--or was it _Once -a Week?_--for any sort of poem that would serve as an advertisement -of magazine enterprise, and he wrote that gem to which Mr. Gilbert had -referred?-- - - “Flower in the crannied wall, - - I pluck you out of the crannies; - - Hold you here, stem and all in my hand. - - Little flower; but if I could understand - - What you are, stem and all and all in all, - - I should know what God and man is,” - -I should like equal immortality to be conferred upon the parody which is -of far greater merit than the original:-- - - 'Terrier in my granny's hall, - - I whistle you out of my granny's; - - Hold you here, tail and all in my hand. - - Little terrier; but if I could understand - - What you are, tail and all and all in all, - - I should know what black-and-tan is.” - -I could understand the inspiration that should result in sermons from -stones--such as the poet's forgetting that his mission was not that -of the sermonising missionary, but of the singer of such creations of -beauty as offer themselves to nestle to the heart of man--when walking -round the gracious curve that the grass path makes till it is arrested -by the break in the wall where the postern gate once hung, guarded by -the sentinel whose feet must have paced this grass path until no blade -of grass remained on it. - -Early every summer the glory of the snapdragons and the wallflowers is -overwhelmed for a time by the blossom of the pear-trees and the plums -which spread themselves abroad and sprawl even over the top of the wall. -By their aid the place is transformed for a whole month in a fruitful -year. In 1917 it was as a terrific snowstorm had visited us. It was with -us as with all our neighbours, a wonderful year for pears, apples, and -plums. Pink and white and white and pink hid the world and all that -appertained to it from our eyes, and when the blossoms were shed we -were afraid to set a foot upon the grass path: it would have been a -profanity to crush that delicate embroidery. It seemed as if Nature had -flung down her copious mantle of fair white satin before our feet; but -we bowed our heads conscious of our unworthiness and stood motionless in -front of that exquisite carpeting. - -[Illustration: 0304] - -And then day after day the lovely things of the wall that had been -hidden asserted themselves, and a soft wind swept the path till all the -green of the new grass path flowed away at our feet, and Nature -seemed less virginal. Then came the babes--revealed by the fallen -blossoms--plump little cherubic faces of apples, graver little papooses -of the russet Indian tint, which were pears, and smaller shy things -peeping out from among the side shoots, which we could hardly recognise -as plums; rather a carcanet of chrysoprase they seemed, so delicately -green in their early days, before each of them became like the ripe -Oriental beauty, the _nigra sed formoasa_, of the Song of Solomon, and -for the same reason: “Because the sun hath looked upon me,” she cried. -When the sun had looked upon the fruit that clustered round the clefts -in our wall, he was as one of the sons of God who had become aware for -the first time of the fact that the daughters of men were fair; and the -whole aspect of the world was changed. - -Is there any part of a garden that is more beautiful than the orchard? -At every season it is lovely. I cannot understand how it is that the -place for fruitgrowing is in so many gardens kept away from what is -called the ornamental part. I cannot understand how it has come about -that flowering shrubs are welcomed and flowering apples discouraged in -the most favoured situations. When a considerable number of the -former have lost their blossoms, they are for the rest of the year as -commonplace as is possible for a tree to be; but when the apple-blossom -has gone, the houghs that were pink take on a new lease of beauty, and -the mellow glory of the season of fruitage lasts for months. The berry -of the gorse which is sometimes called a gooseberry, is banished like -a Northumberland cow-pincher of the romantic period, beyond the border; -but a well furnished gooseberry bush is as worthy of admiration as -anything that grows in the best of the borders, whether the fruit is -green or red. And then look at the fruit of the white currant if you -give it a place where the sun can shine through it--clusters shining -with the soft light of the Pleiades or the more diffuse Cassiopea; and -the red currants--well, I suppose they are like clusters of rubies; but -everything that is red is said to be like a ruby; why not talk of the -red currant bush as a firmament that holds a thousand round fragments of -a fractured Mars? - -There was a time in England when a garden meant a place of fruit rather -than flowers, but by some freak of fashion it was decreed that anything -that appealed to the sense of taste was “not in good taste”--that was -how the warrant for the banishment of so much beauty was worded--“not in -good taste.” I think that the decree is so closely in harmony with -the other pronouncements of the era of _mauvaise honte_--the era of -affectations--when the “young lady” was languid and insipid--“of dwarf -habit,” as the catalogues describe such a growth, and was never -allowed to be a girl--when fainting was esteemed one of the highest -accomplishments of the sex, and everything that was natural was -pronounced gross--when the sampler, the sandal, and the simper wexe the -outward and visible signs of an inward and affected femininity: visible? -oh, no; the sandal was supposed to be invisible; if it once appeared -even to the extent of a taper toe, and attention was called to its -obtrusion, there was a little shriek of horror, and the “young lady” was -looked at askance as demie-vierge. It was so much in keeping with the -rest of the parcel to look on something that could be eaten as something -too gross to be constantly in sight when growing naturally, that I think -the banishment of the apple and the pear and the plum and the gooseberry -to a distant part of the garden must be regarded as belonging to the -same period. But now that the indelicacy of the super-delicacy of -that era has passed--now that the shy sandal has given place to the -well-developed calf above the “calf uppers” of utilitarian boots--now -that a young man and a young woman (especially the young woman) discuss -naturally the question of eugenics and marriage with that freedom which -once was the sole prerogative of the prayerbook, may we not claim an -enlargement of our borders to allow of the rehabilitation of the apple -and the repatriation of the pear in a part of the garden where all -can enjoy their decorative qualities and anticipate their gastronomic -without reproach? Let us give the fruit its desserts and it will return -the compliment. - -The Saxon earthwork below the grass walk is given over to what is -technically termed “the herbaceous border,” and over one thousand eight -hundred square feet there should be such a succession of flowers growing -just as they please, as should delight the heart of a democracy. The -herbaceous border is the democratic section of a garden. The autocrat of -the Dutch and the Formal gardens is not allowed to carry out any of -his foul designs of clipping or curtailing the freedom of Flora in this -province. There should be no reminiscences of the tyrant stake which in -far-distant days of autocracy was a barrier to the freedom of growth, -nor should the aristocracy of the hot-house or even the cool greenhouse -obtrude its educated bloom among the lovers of liberty. They must -be allowed to do as they damplease, which is a good step beyond the -ordinary doing as they please. The government of the herbaceous border -is one whose aim is the glorification of the Mass as opposed to the -Individual. - -It is not at all a bad principle--for a garden--this principle which -can best be carried out by the unprincipled. English democracy includes -princes and principles: but there is a species which will have nothing -to do with principles because they reckon them corrupted by the first -syllable, and hold that the aristocrat is like Hamlet's stepfather, -whose offence was “_rank_ and smells to heaven.” I have noticed, -however, in the growth of my democratic border that there are invariably -a few pushing and precipitate individuals who insist on having their -own way--it is contrary to the spirit of Freedom to check them--and the -result is that the harmony of the whole ceases to exist. But there are -some people who would prefer a Bolshevist wilderness to any garden. - -I have had some experience of Herbaceous Borders of mankind.... - -The beauty of the border is to be found in the masses, we are told in -the Guides to Gardening. We should not allow the blues to mix with the -buffs, and the orange element should not assert its ascendancy over the -green. But what is the use of laying down hard and fast rules here when -the essence of the constitution of the system is No Rule. My experience -leads me to believe that without a rule of life and a firm ruler, this -portion of the garden will become in the course of time allied to -the prairie or the wilderness, and the hue that will prevail to the -destruction of any governing scheme of colour or colourable scheme of -government will be Red. - -Which things are an allegory, culled from a garden of herbs, which, as -we have been told, will furnish a dinner preferable to one that has for -its _pièce de resistance_ the stalled ox, providing that it is partaken -of under certain conditions rigidly defined. - -We have never been able to bring our herbaceous border to the point of -perfection which we are assured by some of those optimists who compile -nurserymen's catalogues, it should reach. We have massed our colours and -nailed them to the mast, so to speak--that is, we have not surrendered -our colour schemes because we happen to fall short of victory; but still -we must acknowledge that the whole border has never been the success -that we hoped it would be. Perhaps we have been too exacting--expecting -over much; or it may be that our standard was too Royal a one for the -soil; but the facts remain and we have a sense of disappointment. - -It seems to me that this very popular feature depends too greatly -upon the character of the season to be truly successful as regards -_ensemble_. Our border includes many subjects which have ideas of -their own as regards the weather. A dry spring season may stunt (in -its English sense) the growth of some dowers that occupy a considerable -space, and are meant to play an important part in the design; whereas -the same influence may develop a stunt (in the American sense) in a -number of others, thereby bringing about a dislocation of the whole -scheme, when some things will rush ahead and override their neighbours -some that lasted in good condition up to the October of one year look -shabby before the end of July the next. One season differs from another -on vital points and the herbs differ in their growth had almost written -their habit--in accordance with the differences of the season. We have -had a fine show in one place and a shabby show next door; we have had -a splendid iris season and a wretched peony season--bare patches beside -luxuriant patches. The gailardias have broken out of bounds one summer, -and when we left “ample verge and room enough” for them the next, they -turned sulky, and the result was a wide space of soil on which a score -of those _gamins_ of the garden, chickweed and dandelion, promptly began -operations, backed up by those _apaches_ of a civilised borderland, -the ragged robin, and we had to be strenuous in our surveillance of the -place, fearful that a riot might ruin all that we had taken pains to -bring to perfection. So it has been season after season--one part quite -beautiful, a second only middling, and a third utterly unresponsive. -That is why we have taken to calling it the facetious border. - -Our experience leads us to look on this facetious herbaceous border as -the parson's daughter looks on the Sunday School--as a place for the -development of all that is tricky in Nature, with here and there a bunch -of clean collars and tidy trimmings--something worth carrying on over, -but not to wax enthusiastic over. So we mean to carry on, and take -Flora's “buffets and awards” “with equal thanks.” We shall endeavour to -make our unruly tract in some measure tractable; and, after all, where -is the joy of gardening apart from the trying? It was a great -philosopher who affirmed at the close of a long life, that if he were -starting his career anew and the choice were off not to wax enthusiastic -over. So we mean to carry on, and take Flora's “buffets and awards” - “with equal thanks.” We shall endeavour to make our unruly tract in some -measure tractable; and, after all, where is the joy of gardening apart -from the trying? It was a great philosopher who affirmed at the close of -a long life, that if he were starting his career anew and the choice -were offered to him between the Truth and the Pursuit of Truth, he would -certainly choose the latter. That man had the true gardening spirit. - -Any one who enters a garden without feeling that he is entering a big -household of children, should stay outside and make a friend of the -angel who was set at the gate of the first Paradise with a flaming -sword, which I take it was a gladiolus--the gladiolus is the _gladius_ -of flowerland--to keep fools on the outside. The angel and the proper -man will get on very well together at the garden gate, talking of things -that are within the scope of the intelligence of angels and men Who -think doormats represent Nature in that they are made of cocoa-nut -fibre. We have long ago come to look on the garden as a region of living -things--shouting children, riotous children, sulky children; children -who are rebellious, perverse, impatient at restriction, bad-tempered, -quarrelsome, but ever ready to “make it up,” and fling themselves into -your arms and give you a chance of sharing with them the true joy of -life which is theirs. - -This is what a garden of flowers means to any one who enters it in -a proper spirit of comradeship, and not in the attitude of a School -Inspector. We go into the garden not to educate the flowers, but to be -beloved by them--to make companions of them and, if they will allow us, -to share some of the secrets they guard so jealously until they find -some one whom they feel they can trust implicitly. A garden is like the -object of Dryden's satire, “Not one, but all mankind's epitome,” and a -knowledge of men that makes a man a sympathetic gardener. I think that -Christ was as fond of gardens as God ever was. “Consider the lilies of -the field, how they grow: they toil not neither do they spin, and yet I -say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one -of these.” - -[Illustration: 0314] - -There is the glorious charter of the garden, the truth of which none can -dispute--there is the revelation of the spirit of the garden delivered -to men by the wisest and the most sympathetic garden-lover that ever -sought a Gethsemane for communion With the Father of all, in an hour of -trial. - -I wonder what stores of knowledge of plant-life existed among the wise -Orientals long ago. Were they aware of all that we suppose has only been -revealed to us--“discovered” by us within recent years? Did they -know that there is no dividing line between the various elements of -life--between man, who is the head of “the brute creation,” and the -creatures of what the books of my young days styled “the Vegetable -Kingdom”? Did they know that it is possible for a tree to have a deeper -love for its mate than a man has for the wife whom he cherishes? I made -the acquaintance some years ago of an Eastern tree which was brought -away from his family in the forest and, though placed in congenial sod, -remained, for years making no advance in growth--living, but nothing -more--until one day a thoughtful man who had spent years studying -plants of the East, brought a female companion to that tree, and had the -satisfaction of seeing “him” assume a growth which was maintained year -by year alongside “her,” until they were both shown to me rejoicing -together, the one vieing, with the other in luxuriance of foliage -and fruit. Every one who has grown apples or plums has had the same -experience. We all know now of the courtship and the love and the -marriage of things in “the Vegetable Kingdom,” and we know that there -is no difference in the process of that love which means life in “the -Animal Kingdom” and “the Vegetable Kingdom.” In some directions their -“human” feelings and emotions and passions have been made plain to -us; how much more we shall learn it is impossible to tell; but we know -enough to save us from the error of fancying that they have a different -existence from ours, and every day that one spends in a garden makes us -ready to echo Shelley's lyrical shout of “Beloved Brotherhood!” - -That is what 1 feel when I am made the victim of some of the pranks of -the gay creatures of the herbaceous border, who amuse themselves at our -expense, refusing to be bound down to our restrictions, to travel the -way we think good plants should go, and declining to be guided by an -intelligence which they know to be inferior to their own. The story of -the wilful gourd which would insist on crossing a garden path in the -direction it knew to be the right one, though a human intelligence tried -to make it go in another, was told by an astonished naturalist in the -pages of _Country Life_ a short time ago. I hope it was widely read. The -knowledge that such things can be will give many thousand readers access -to a held of study and of that legitimate speculation which is the -result of study and observation. It will ever tend to mitigate the -disappointment some of us may be inclined to harbour when we witness -our floral failures, though it is questionable if the recognition of the -fact that our failures are due to our own stupid bungling, will diminish -the store of that self-conceit which long ago induced us to think of -ourselves as the sole _raison d'être_ of all Creation. - - - - -CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD - -WE, were working at the young campanulas when our friend Heywood came -upon us--Heywood, for whose intelligence we have so great a respect, -because he so frequently agrees with our outlook upon the world of woman -and other flowers cherished by us. Heywood is a good artist; but because -he believes that Womankind is a kind woman indefinitely multiplied, -he paints more faithful portraits of men than of women; he also paints -landscapes that live more faithfully than the human features that -he depicts and receives large sums for depicting. He is a student of -children, and comes to Rosamund quite seriously for her criticism. She -gives it unaffectedly, I am glad to notice; and without having to make -use of a word of the School-of-Art phraseology. - -We have an able surgeon (retired) living close to us here, and he is -still so interested in the Science he practised--he retired from the -practice, not from the science--that when he is made aware of an unusual -operation about to be performed in any direction--London, Paris, or (not -recently) Vienna, he goes off to witness the performance, just as we go -to some of the most interesting _premières_ in town. In the same -spirit Heywood runs off every now and again to Paris to see the latest -production of his old master, or the acquisition of an old Master at -one of the galleries. It lets him know what is going on in the world, he -says, and I am sure he is quite right. - -But, of course, Atheist Friswell has his smile--a solemn smile it is -this time--while he says,-- - -“Old Masters? Young mississes rather, I think.” - -“Young what?” cried Dorothy. - -“Mysteries,” he replied. “What on earth do you think I said?” - -“Another word with the same meaning,” says she. - -But these artistic excursions have nothing to do with us among our -campanulas to-day. Heywood has been aware of a funny thing and came to -make us laugh with him. - -“Campanulas!” he cried. “And that is just what I came to tell you -about--the campanile at St. Katherine's.” - -Yardley Parva, in common with Venice, Florence, and a number of other -places, has a campanile, only it was not designed by Giotto or any other -artist. Nor is it even called a campanile, but a bell-tower, and it -belongs to the Church of St. Katherine-sub-Castro--a Norman church -transformed by a few-adroit touches here and there into the purest -Gothic of the Restoration--the Gilbert Scoti-Church-Restoration period. - -But no one would complain with any measure of bitterness at the -existence of the bell-tower only for the fact that there are bells -within it, and these bells being eight, lend themselves to many feats -of campanology, worrying the inhabitants within a large area round about -the low levels of the town. The peace of every Sabbath Day is rudely -broken by the violence of what the patient folk with no _arrière pensée_ -term “them joy bells.” - -“You have not heard a sound of them for some Sundays,” said Heywood. - -“I have not complained,” said I. “Ask Dorothy if I have.” - -“No one has, unless the bell-ringers, who are getting flabby through -lack of exercise,” said he. “But the reason you have not heard them is -because they have been silent.” - -“The British Fleet you cannot see, for it is not in sight,” said I. - -“And the reason that they have been silent was the serious illness -of Mr. Livesay, whose house is close to St. Katherine's. Dr. Beecher -prescribed complete repose for poor Livesay, and as the joy bells of St. -Katherine's do not promote that condition, his wife sent a message to -the ringers asking them to oblige by refraining from their customary -uproar until the doctor should remove his ban. They did so two Sundays -ago, and the Sunday before last they sent to inquire how the man was. He -was a good deal worse, they were told, so they were cheated out of their -exercise again. Yesterday, however, they rang merrily out--merrily.” - -“We heard,” said Dorothy. “So I suppose Mr. Livesay is better.” - -“On the contrary, he is dead,” said Heywood. - -“He died late on Saturday night. My housekeeper, Mrs. Hartwell, had just -brought me in my breakfast when the bells began. 'Listen,' she cried. -'Listen! the joy bells! Mr. Livesay must have died last night.'” - -It was true. The bell-ringers had made their call at poor Livesay's -house on Sunday morning, and on receiving the melancholy news, they -hurried off to let their joy bells proclaim it far and wide. - -But no one in Yardley Parva, lay or clerical, except Heyward and -ourselves seemed to think that there was anything singular in the -incident. - -We had a few words to say, however, about joy bells spreading abroad the -sad news of a decent man's death, and upon campanology in general. - -But when Friswell heard of the affair, he said he did not think it more -foolish than the usual practice of church bells. - -“We all know, of course, that there is nothing frightens the devil like -the ringing of bells,” said he. - -“That is quite plausible,” said I. “Any one who doubts it must have -lived all his life in a heathen place where there are no churches. Juan -Fernandez, for example,” I added, as a couple of lines sang through my -recollection. “Cowper made his Alexander Selkirk long for 'the sound of -the churchgoing bell.'” - -“That was a good touch of Cowper's,” said Friswell. “He knew that -Alexander Selkirk was a Scotsman, and with much of the traditional -sanctimoniousness of his people, when he found himself awful bad or -muckle bad or whatever the right phrase is, he was ready to propitiate -heaven by a pious aspiration.” - -“Nothing of the sort,” cried Dorothy. “He was quite sincere. Cowper knew -that there is nothing that brings back recollections of childhood, which -we always think was the happiest time of our life, like the chiming of -church bells.” - -“I dare say you are right,” said he, after a little pause. “But like -many other people, poet Cowper did not think of the church bells except -in regard to their secondary function of summoning people to the sacred -precincts. He probably never knew that the original use of the bells was -to scare away the Evil One. It was only when they found out that he -had never any temptation to enter a church, that the authorities turned -their devil-scaring bells to the summoning of the worshippers, and they -have kept up the foolish practice ever since.” - -“Why foolish?” asked Dorothy quite affably. “You don't consider it -foolish to ring a bell to go to dinner, and why should you think it so -in the matter of going to church?” - -“My dear creature, you don't keep ringing your dinner bell for half an -hour, with an extra five minutes for the cook.” - -“No,” said she quickly. “And why not? Because people don't need any -urging to come to dinner, but they require a good deal to go to church, -and then they don't go.” - -“There's something in that,” said he. “Anyhow they've been ringing those -summoning bells so long that I'm sure they will go on with them until -all the churches are turned into school-houses.” - -“And then there will be a passing-bell rung for the passing of the -churches themselves--I suppose the origin of the passing-bell was the -necessity to scare away the devil at the supreme moment,” remarked -Heywood. - -“Undoubtedly it was,” said Friswell. “The practice exists among many of -those races that are still savage enough to believe in the devil--a good -handmade tom-tom does the business quite effectually, I've heard.” - -“Do you know, my dear Friswell, I think that when you sit down with us -in our Garden of Peace, the conversation usually takes the form of the -dialogue in _Magnall's Questions_ or the _Child's Guide_ or _Joyce's -Science_. You are so full of promiscuous information which you cannot -hide?” - -He roared in laughter, and we all joined in. - -“You have just said what my wife says to me daily,” said he. “I'll try -to repress myself in future.” - -“Don't try to do anything of the sort,” cried Dorothy. “You never cease -to be interesting, no matter how erudite you are.” - -“What I can't understand is, how he has escaped assassination all these -years,” remarked Heywood. “I think the time is coming when whoso slayeth -Friswell will think that he doeth God's service. Just think all of you -of the mental state of the man who fails to see that, however heathenish -may be the practice of church-bell-ringing, the fact that it has brought -into existence some of the most beautiful buildings in the world makes -the world its debtor for evermore!” - -“I take back all my words--I renounce the devil and all his work,” cried -the other man. “Yes, I hold that Giotto's Campanile justifies all the -clashing and banging and hammering before and since. On the same -analogy I believe with equal sincerity that the Temple of Jupiter fully -justifies the oblations to the Father of gods, and the Mosque of Omar -the massacres of Islam.” - -“Go on,” said Dorothy. “Say that the sufferings of Alexander Selkirk -were justified since without them we should not have _Robinson Crusoe_.” - -“I will say anything you please, my Lady of the Garden,” said he -heartily. “I will say that the beauty of that border beside you -justifies Wakeley's lavish advertisements of Hop Mixture.” - -I felt that this sort of thing had gone on long enough, so I made a -hair-pin bend in the conversation by asking Dorothy if she remembered -the day of our visit to Robinson Crusoe's island. - -“I never knew that you had been to Juan Fernandez,” said Friswell. - -And then I saw how I could score off Friswell. - -“I said Robinson Crusoe's island, not Alexander Selkirk's,” I cried. -“Alexander Selkirk's was Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe's was Tobago in -the West indies, which Dorothy and I explored some years ago.” - -“Of course I should have remembered that,” said he. “I recollect now -what a stumbling-block to me the geography of _Robinson Crusoe_ was when -I first read the book. A foolish explanatory preface to the cheap copy I -read gave a garbled version of the story of Selkirk and his island, and -said no word about Daniel Defoe having been wise enough to change Juan -Fernandez for another.” - -“You were no worse than the writer of a paragraph I read in one of the -leading papers a short time ago, relative to the sale of the will which -Selkirk made in the year 1717--years after Captain Woodes Rodgers had -picked him up at the island where he had been marooned nearly four years -before,” said Dorothy, who, I remembered, had laughed over the erudition -of the paragraph. “The writer affirmed that the will had been made -before the man 'had sailed unwittingly for Tristan d'Acunha'--those -were his exact words, and this island he seemed to identify with Bishop -Keber's, for he said it was 'where every prospect pleases and only man -is vile.' What was in the poor man's mind was the fact that some one -had written a poem about Alexander Selkirk, and he mixed Cowper up with -Heber.” - -“You didn't write to the paper to put the fellow right,” said Heywood. - -“Good gracious, no!” cried Dorothy. “I knew that no one in these -aeroplaning days would care whether the island was Tristan d'Acunha or -Juan Fernandez. Besides, there was too much astray in the paragraph for -a simple woman to set about making good. Anyhow the document fetched £60 -at the sale.” - -“You remember the lesson that was learnt by the man who wrote to correct -something a newspaper had written about him, said Heywood. The editor -called me a swindler, a liar, and a politician,' said he, relating his -experience, 'and like a fool 1 wrote to contradict it. I was a fool: for -what did the fellow do in the very next issue but prove every statement -that he had made!'” - -“Oh, isn't it lucky that I didn't write to that paper?” cried Dorothy. - -But when we began to talk of the imaginary sufferings of Robinson -Crusoe, and to try to imagine what were the real sufferings of Selkirk, -Friswell laughed, saying,-- - -“I'm pretty sure that what the bonnie Scots body suffered from most -poignantly was the island not having any of his countrymen at hand, so -that they could start a Burns Club or a Caledonian Society, as the six -representatives of Scotland are about to do in our town of Yardley, -which has hitherto been free from anything of that sort. Did you ever -hear the story of Andrew Gareloch and Alec MacClackan?” - -We assured him that we had never heard a word of it. - -He told it to us, and this is what it amounted to:--Messrs. Andrew -Gareloch and Alec MacClackan were merchants of Shanghai who were -unfortunate enough to be wrecked on their voyage home. They were the -sole survivors of the ship's company, and the desert island on -which they found themselves was in the Pacific, only a few miles in -circumference. In the lagoon were plenty of fish and on the ridge of the -slope were plenty of cocoa-nuts. After a good meal they determined to -name the place. They called it St. Andrew Lang Syne Island, and became -as festive and brotherly--they pronounced it “britherly”--as was -possible over cocoa-nut milk: it was a long time since either of -them had tasted milk of any sort. The second day they founded a local -Benevolent Society of St. Andrew, and held the inaugural dinner; the -third day they founded a Burns Club, with a supper; the fourth day they -starts a Scots Association, with a series of monthly reunions for the -discussion of the Minstrelsy of the Border; the fifth day they laid out -golf links with the finest bunkers in the world, and instituted a club -lunch (strictly nonalcoholic); the sixth day they formed a Curling -Club--the lagoon would make a braw rink, they said, if it only froze; -and if it didn't freeze, well, they could still have an annual Curlers' -Supper; the Seventh Day they _kept_. On the evening of the same day a -vessel was sighted bearing up for the island; but of course neither of -the men would hoist a signal on the Seventh Day, and they watched the -craft run past the island; though they were amazed to see that she had -only courses and a foresail set, in spite of the fact that the breeze -was a light one. The next morning, when they were sitting at breakfast, -discussing whether they should lay the foundation stone--with -a commemorative lunch--of a Free Kirk, a Wee Free Kirk, a U.P. -meeting-house or an Ould Licht meeting-house--they had been fiercely -debating on the merits of each during the previous twenty years--they -saw the vessel returning with all sail on her. To run up one of their -shirts to a pole at the entrance to the lagoon was a matter of a moment, -and they saw that their signal was responded to. She was steered by -their signals through the entrance to the lagoon and dropped anchor. - -She turned out to be the _Bonnie Doon_, of Dundee, Douglas MacKellar, -Master. He had found wreckage out at sea and had thought it possible -that some survivors of the wreck might want passages “hame.” - -“Nae, nae,” cried both men. “We're no in need o' passages hame just -the noo. But what for did ye no mak' for the lagoon yestreen in the -gloamin'?” - -“Hoot awa'--hoot awa'! ye wouldna hae me come ashore on the Sawbath -Day,” said Captain MacKellar. - -“Ye shortened sail though,” said Mr. MacClackan. “Ay; on Saturday nicht: -I never let her do more than just sail on the Sawbath. But what for did -ye no run up a signal, ye loons, if ye spied me sae weel?” - -“Hoot awa'--hoot awa', man, ye wouldna hae a body mak' a signal on the -Sawbath Day.” - -“Na--na; no a reglar signal; but ye micht hae run up a wee bittie--just -eneuch tae catch me e'en on. Ay an' mebbe ye'll be steppin' aboard the -noo?” - -“Weil hae to hae a clash about it, Captain.” - -Well, they talked it over cautiously for a few hours; for captain -MacKellar was a hard man at a bargain, and he would not agree to give -them a passage under two pound a head. At last, however, negotiations -were concluded, the men got aboard the _Bonnie Doon,_ and piloted her -through the channel. They reached the Clyde in safety, and Captain -Mac-Kellar remarked,-- - -“Weel, ma freens, I'm in hopes that ye'll pay me ower the siller this -day.” - -“Ay, ye maun be in the quare swithers till ye see the siller; but we'll -hand it ower, certes,” said the passengers. “In the meantime, we'd tak' -the leeberty o' callin' your attention to a wee bit contra-claim that we -hae japped doon on a bit slip o' paper. It's three poon nine for -Harbour Dues that ye owe us, Captain MacKellar, and twa poon ten for -pilotage--it's compulsory at yon island, so 'tis, so mebbe ye'll mak' -it convenient to hand us ower the differs when we land. Ay, Douglas -MacKellar, ma mon, ye shouldna try to get the better o' Brither-Scots!” - -Captain MacKellar was a God-fearing man, but he said, “Dom!” - - - - -CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH - -Whatever my garden may be, I think I can honestly claim for it that it -has no educational value. The educational garden is one in which all -the different orders and classes and groups and species and genera are -displayed in such a way as to make no display, but to enable an ordinary -person in the course of ten or twelve years to become a botanist. Botany -is the syntax of the garden. A man may know everything about syntax and -yet never become a poet; and a garden should be a poem. - -I remember how a perfect poem of a garden was translated into the most -repulsively correct prose by the exertions of a botanist. It was in a -semi-public pleasure ground maintained by subscribers of a guinea each, -and of course it was administered by a Committee. After many years of -failure, an admirable head-gardener was found--a young and enthusiastic -man with eye for design and an appreciation of form as well as colour. -Within a short space of time he turned a commonplace pleasure-ground -into a thing of beauty; and, not content with making the enormous domed -conservatory and the adjoining hothouse a blaze of colour and fragrance, -he attacked an old worn-out greenhouse and, without asking for outside -assistance, transformed it into a natural sub-tropical landscape--palms -and cacti and giant New Zealand ferns, growing amid rocky surroundings, -and wonderful lilies filling a large natural basin, below an effective -cascade. The place was just what such a place should be, conveying the -best idea possible to have of a moist corner of a tropical forest, only -without the overwhelming shabbiness which was the most striking note -of every tropical forest I have ever seen in a natural condition. In -addition to its attractiveness in this respect, it would have become a -source of financial profit to the subscribers, for the annual “thinning -out” of its superfluous growths would mean the stocking of many private -conservatories. - -On the Committee of Management, however, there was one gentleman whose -aim in life was to be regarded by his fellow-tradesmen as a great -botanist: he was, to a great botanist, what the writer of the cracker -mottoes is to a great poet, or the compiler of the puzzle-page of a -newspaper is to a great mathematician; but he was capable of making a -fuss and convincing a bunch of tradesmen that making a fuss is a proof -of superiority; and that botany and beauty are never to be found in -association. He condemned the tropical garden as an abomination, because -it was impossible that a place which could give hospitality to a growth -of New Zealand fern, _Phormium Hookeri_, should harbour a sago palm -_Metroxylon Elatum_, which was not indigenous to New Zealand; and then -he went on to talk about the obligations of the place to be educational -and not ornamental, showing quite plainly that to be botanical should be -the highest aim of any one anxious for the welfare of his country. - -The result of his harangue was the summoning of the head-gardener -before the Board and his condemnation on the ground that he had put the -Beautiful in the place that should be occupied by the Educational. He -was ordered to abandon that unauthorised hobby of his for gratifying -the senses of foolish people who did not know the difference between -_Phormium Hookeri_ and _Metroxylon Elatum_, and to set to work to lay -out an Educational Garden. - -He looked at the members of the Board, and, like the poker player -who said, “I pass,” when he heard who had dealt the cards, he made no -attempt to defend himself. He laid out the Educational Garden that was -required of him, and when he had done so and the Board thought that he -was resigned to his fate as the interpreter of the rules of prosody as -applied to a garden, he handed in his resignation, and informed them -that he had accepted a situation as Curator of a park in a rival town, -and at a salary--a Curator gets a salary and a gardener only wages--of -exactly double the sum granted to him by the employers from whom he was -separating himself. - -In three years the place he left had become bankrupt and was wound up. -It was bought at a scrapping figure by the Municipality, and its swings -are now said to be the highest in five counties. - -I saw the Educational Garden that he laid out, and knew, and so did he, -that he was “laying out”--the undertaker's phrase--the whole concern. -When he had completed it, I felt that I could easily resist the -temptation to introduce education at the expense of design into any -garden of mine. - -It is undeniable that a place constructed on such a botanical system may -be extremely interesting to a number of students, and especially so to -druggists' apprentices; but turning to so-called “educational purposes” - a piece of garden that can grow roses, is like using the silk of an -embroiderer to darn the corduroys of a railway porter. - -But it was a revelation to some people how the growing of war-time -vegetables where only flowers had previously been grown, was not out -of harmony with the design of a garden. I must confess that it was with -some misgiving that I planted rows of runner beans in a long wall border -which had formerly been given over to annuals, and globe artichokes -where lilies did once inhabit--I even went so far as to sow carrots in -lines between the echeverias of the stone-edged beds, and lettuces -at the back of my fuchsia bushes. But the result from an æsthetic -standpoint was so gratifying that I have not ceased to wonder why such -beautiful things should be treated as were the fruit-trees, and looked -on as steerage passengers are by the occupants of the fifty-guinea -staterooms of a fashionable Cunarder. The artichoke is really a garden -inmate; alongside the potatoes in the kitchen garden, it is like the -noble Sir Pelleas who was scullery-maid in King Arthur's household. -The globe artichoke is like one of those British peers whom we hear -of--usually when they have just died--as serving in the forecastle of a -collier tramp. It is a lordly thing, and, I have found, it makes many -of the most uppish forms in the flower garden hide diminished heads. An -edging of dwarf cabbages of some varieties is quite as effective as one -of box, and Dell's “black beet” cannot be beaten where a foliage effect -is desired. Of course the runner bean must be accepted as a flower. If -it has been excluded from its rightful quarters, it is because the idea -is prevalent that it cannot be grown unless in the unsightly way that -finds favour in the kitchen garden. It would seem as if the controllers -of this department aimed at achieving the ugly in this particular. They -make a sort of gipsy tripod of boughs, only without removing the twigs, -and let the plant work its way up many of these. This is not good enough -for a garden where neatness is regarded as a virtue. - -I found that these beans can be grown with abundant success in a border, -by running a stout wire along brackets, two or three feet out from a -wall, and suspending the roughest manila twine at intervals to carnation -wires in the soil below. This gives an unobtrusive support to the -plants, and in a fortnight the whole, of this flimsy frontage is hidden, -and the blossoms are blazing splendidly. I have had rows of over a -hundred feet of these beans, but not one support gave way even in the -strongest wind, and the household was supplied up to the middle of -November. - -I am sure that such experiments add greatly to the interest of -gardening; and I encourage my Olive branch in her craving after a flower -garden that shall be made up wholly of weeds. She has found out, I -cannot say how, that the dandelion is a thing of beauty--she discovered -one in a garden that she visited, and having never seen one before, -inquired what was its name. I told her that the flower was not -absolutely new to me, but lest I should lead her astray as to its name, -she would do well to put her inquiry to the gardener and ask him for -any hints he could give her as to its culture, and above all, how to -propagate it freely. If he advised cuttings and a hot bed, perhaps -he might be able to tell her the right temperature, and if he thought -ordinary bonemeal would do for a fertiliser for it. - -Beyond a doubt a bed of dandelions would look very fine, but one cannot -have everything in a garden, and I hope I may have the chance, hitherto -denied to me, of resigning myself to its absence from mine, even though -it be only for a single week. - -But there are many worthy weeds to be found when one looks carefully for -them, and I should regard with great interest any display of them in a -bed ( in a neighbour's garden, providing that that garden was not within -a mile of mine). - -The transformation just mentioned of a decrepit greenhouse into the -sub-tropical pleasure-ground, was not my inspiration for my treatment of -a greenhouse which encumbered a part of my ground only a short time ago. -It was a necessity for a practice of rigid economy that inspired me when -I examined the dilapidations and estimated the cost of “making good” at -something little short of fifty pounds. It had been patched often enough -before, goodness knows, and its wounds had been poulticed with putty -until in some places it seemed to be suffering from an irrepressible -attack of mumps. - -Now the building had always been an offence to me. It was like an -incompetent servant, who, in addition to being incapable of earning -his wages, is possessed of an enormous appetite. With an old-fashioned -heating apparatus the amount of fuel it consumed year by year was -appalling; and withal it had more than once played us false, with the -result that several precious lives were lost in a winter when we looked -to the greenhouse to give us some colour for indoors. With such a list -of convictions against it, I was not disposed to be lenient, and the -suggestion of the discipline of a Reformatory was coldly received by me. - -The fact was, that in my position as judge, I resembled too closely the -one in Gilbert's _Trial by Jury_ to allow of my being trusted implicitly -in cases in which personal attractions are to be put in the scales of -even-handed Justice; and with all its burden of guilt that greenhouse -bore the reputation of unsightliness. If it had had a single redeeming -feature, I might have been susceptible to its influence; but it had -none. It had been born commonplace, and old age had not improved it. - -Leaning against the uttermost boundary wall of the garden, it had been -my achievement to hide it by the hedge of briar roses and the colonnade; -but it was sometimes only with great difficulty that we could head -off visitors from its doors. Heywood heaped on it his concentrated -opprobrium by calling it the Crystal Palace; but Dorothy, who had been a -student of _Jane Eyre_, had given it the name of “Rochester's Wife,” and -we had behaved toward it pretty much as Jane's lover had behaved in his -endeavour to set up a younger and more presentable object in the place -of his mature demented partner: we had two other glass-houses that we -could enter and see entered without misgiving; so that when we -stood beside the offending one with the estimate of the cost of its -reformation, I, at any rate, was not disposed to leniency. - -“A case for the Reformatory,” said Dorothy, and in a moment the word -brought to my mind the advice of the young lord Hamlet, and I called -out,-- - -“Reform it altogether.” - -“What do you mean?” she asked; for she sometimes gives me credit for -uttering words with a meaning hidden somewhere among the meshes of -verbiage. - -“I have spoken the decision of the Court,” I replied. “'Reform it -altogether.'” - -“At a cost--a waste--of sixty odd pounds?” - -“I will not try to renew its youth like the eagles,” said I, in the tone -of voice of a prophet in the act of seeing a vision. “I shall make a new -thing of it, and a thing of beauty into the bargain.” - -She laughed pretty much as in patriarchal days Sara, laughed at the -forecast of an equally unlikely occurrence. - -After an interval she laughed again, but with no note of derision. - -“I see it all now-all!” she cried. “You will be the Martin Luther of its -Reformation: you will cut the half of it away; but will the Church stand -when you have done with it?” - -“Stronger than it ever was. I will hear the voice of no protestant -against it,” I replied. - -My scheme had become apparent to her in almost every particular as it -had flashed upon me; and we began operations the very next day. - -And this is what the operation amounted to--an Amputation. - -When a limb has suffered such an injury as to make its recovery hopeless -as well as a danger to the whole body, the saving grace of the surgeon's -knife is resorted to, and the result is usually the rescue of the -patient. Our resolution was to cut away the rotten parts of the roof -of the greenhouse and convert the remainder, which was perfectly sound, -into a peach-shelter; and within a couple of weeks the operation had -been performed with what appeared to us to be complete success. - -We removed the lower panes of glass without difficulty--the difficulty -_was_ to induce the others to remain under their bondage of ancient -putty: “They don't make putty like that nowadays,” remarked my builder, -who is also, in accordance with the dictation of a job like this, a -housebreaker, a carpenter, and a glazier--a sort of unity of many tools -that comes to our relief (very appropriately) from the United States. - -[Illustration: 0340] - -I replied to him enigmatically that putty was a very good servant, but -a very bad master. The dictum had no connection with the matter in hand, -but it sounded as if it had, and that it was the crystallisation of -wisdom; and the good workman accepted it at its face value. He removed -over two hundred panes, each four feet by ten inches, without breaking -one, and he removed more than a thousand feet of the two-inch laths from -the stages, the heavier ones being of oak; he braced up the seven foot -depth of roof which we decreed should shelter our peaches, and “made -good” the inequalities of the edges. In short, he made a thoroughly good -job of the affair, and when he had finished he left us with a new and -very interesting feature of the garden. A lean-to greenhouse is, as a -rule, a commonplace incident in a garden landscape, and it is doubtful -if it pays for its keep, though admittedly useful as a nursery; but a -peach-alley is interesting because unusual. In our place of peace -this element is emphasised through our having allowed the elevated, -brick-built border that existed before, to remain untouched, and also -the framework where the swing-glass ventilators had been hung. When -our peach-trees were planted, flanked by plums and faced by apples _en -espalier,_ we covered the borders with violas of various colours, and -enwreathed the framework with the Cape Plumbago and the Jasmine Solanum. -and both responded nobly to our demands. - -Nothing remained in order to place the transformation in harmony with -its surroundings but to turn the two large brick tanks which had served -us well in receiving the water from the old roof, into ornamental -lily ponds, and this was accomplished by the aid of some of the stone -carvings which I had picked up from time to time, in view of being able -to give them a place of honour some day. On the whole, we are quite -satisfied with this additional feature. It creates another surprise for -the entertainment of a visitor, and when the peaches and plums ripen -simultaneously, following the strawberries, we shall have, if we are to -believe Friswell, many more friends coming to us. - -“If they are truly friends, we shall be glad,” says Dorothy. - -“By your fruits ye shall know them,” says he, for like most professors -of the creed of the incredulous, he is never so much at his ease as when -quoting Scripture. - -This morning as I was playing (indifferently) the part of Preceptress -Pinkerton, trying to induce on Rosamund, Olive, Francie, Marjorie, and -our dear, wise John, a firm grasp of the elements of the nature of the -English People as shown by their response to the many crusades in which -they have taken part since the first was proclaimed by Peter the Hermit, -I came to that part of nay illuminating discourse which referred to the -Nation's stolidity even in their hour of supreme triumph. - -“This,” said I, “may be regarded by the more emotional peoples of Europe -as showing a certain coldness of temperament, in itself suggesting a -want of imagination, or perhaps, a cynical indifference--'cynical,' mind -you, from _kyon_, a dog--to incidents that should quicken the beating of -every human heart. But I should advise you to think of this trait of -our great Nation as indicating a praiseworthy reserve of the deepest -feelings. I regard with respect those good people who to-day are going -about their business in the streets of our town just in the usual way, -although the most important news that has reached the town since the -news of the capture of Antioch in 1099, is expected this evening. And -you will find that they will appear just as unconcerned if they learn -that the terms of the Armistice have been accepted--they will stroll -about with their hands in their pockets--not a cheer.... Is that your -mother calling you, John?” - -“No; I think it's somebody in the street?” said John. - -“Oh, I forgot. It's Monday--market day. There's more excitement in -Yardley High Street if a cow turns into Waterport Lane than there -will be when Peace is proclaimed. But still, I repeat, that this -difference... What was that? two cows must have turned into--Why, what's -this--what's--sit down, all of you--I tell you it's only--” - -“Hurrah--hurrah--hurrah--hurrah--hurrah!” comes from the five young -throats of five rosy-cheeked, unchecked children, responding to the five -hundred that roar through the streets. - -In five minutes the front of our house is ablaze with flags, and five -Union Jacks are added to the hundreds that young and old wave over -their heads in the street; and amid the tumult the recent admirer of -the stolid English People is risking his neck in an endeavour to fix a -Crusader's well-worn helmet in an alcove above the carven lions on the -perch of his home. - -There, high over us, stands the Castle Keep as it stood in the days of -the First Crusade. - -“And ever above the topmost roof the banner of England blew.” - -Going out I saw a cow stray down Waterport Lane; but no one paid any -attention to its errantry. - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A Garden of Peace, by Frank Frankfort Moore - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GARDEN OF PEACE *** - -***** This file should be named 51940-0.txt or 51940-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/4/51940/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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