FRAGRANCE. 



Pacific seas, as stars are scattered in the heavens ; enormous tropical 

 forests, little entered by man, but from which he gathers on the out- 

 skirts treasures for stove and greenhouse ; great island gardens like 

 Java and Ceylon and Borneo, rich in spices and lovely plant life ; 

 Australian bush, with plants strange as if from another world, but 

 often most delicate in odour even in the distorted fragments of them 

 we see in our gardens. 



It is not only from the fragile flower-vases these sweet odours 

 flow ; they breathe through leaf and stem, and the whole being of 

 many trees and bushes, from the stately Gum trees of Australia to 

 the sweet Verbena of Chili. Many must have felt the charm of the 

 strange scent of the Box bush before Oliver Wendell Holmes told us 

 of its " breathing the fragrance of eternity." The scent of flowers is 

 often cloying, as of the Tuberose, while that of leaves is often delicate 

 and refreshing, as in the budding Larch, and in the leaves of Balm and 

 Rosemary, while fragrance is often stored in the wood, as in the Cedar 

 of Lebanon and many other trees, and even down through the roots. 



It is given to few to see many of these sweet plants in their 

 native lands, but we who love our gardens may enjoy many of them 

 about us, not merely in drawings or descriptions, but the living, 

 breathing things themselves. The Geraniums in the cottage window 

 bring us the spicy fragrance of the South African hills ; the Lavender 

 bush of the sunny hills of Provence, where it is at home ; the Roses 

 in the garden bring near us the breath of the wild Roses on a thou- 

 sand hills ; the sweet or pot herbs of our gardens are a gift of the 

 shore-lands of France and Italy and Greece. The Sweet Bay bush 

 in the farmer's or cottage garden comes with its story from the 

 streams of Greece, where it seeks moisture in a thirsty land along 

 with the wild Olive and the Arbutus. And this Sweet Bay is the 

 Laurel of the poets, of the first and greatest of all poet and artist 

 nations of the earth — the Laurel sacred to Apollo, and used in many 

 ways in his worship, as we may see on coins, and in many other 

 things that remain to us of the great peoples of the past. The 

 Myrtle, of less fame, but also a sacred plant beloved for its leaves 

 and blossoms, was, like the Laurel, seen near the temples of the race 

 who built their temples as the Lily is built, whose song is deathless, and 

 the fragments of whose art is Despair to the artist of our time. And 

 thus the fragrant bushes of our gardens may entwine for us, apart 

 from their gift of beauty, living associations and beautiful thoughts 

 for ever famous in human story. 



It is not only odours of trees and flowers known to all we have 

 to think of, but also many delicate ones, less known, perhaps, by 

 reason of the blossoms that give them being without showy colour, as 

 the wild Vine, the Sweet Vernal, Lemon, and other Grasses. And 

 among these modest flowers there are none more delicate in odour 



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