THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



ever put on any false pretence. No garden 

 should ever break a promise. To the present 

 reader these proclamations may seem very trite; 

 it may seem very trite to say that if anything 

 in or of a garden is meant for adornment, it must 

 adorn; but we have to say such things to many 

 who do not know what trite means — who think 

 it is something you buy from the butcher. A 

 thing meant for adornment, we tell them, must 

 so truly and sufficiently adorn as to be worth 

 all the room and attention it takes up. Thou 

 shalt not let anything in thy garden take away 

 thy guest's attention without repaying him for 

 it; it is stealing. 



A lady, not in our competition but one of its 

 most valued patronesses, lately proposed to her- 

 self to place in the centre of a wide, oval lawn a 

 sun-dial and to have four paths cross the grass 

 and meet there. But on reflection the query 

 came to her — 



*'In my unformal garden of simplest grove 

 and sward will a sun-dial — posing in an ofl&ce it 

 never performed there, and will never again be 

 needed for anywhere — a cabinet reHc now — 



56 



