THE TECHNICS OF GARDENING. 177 



said before, let no one suppose that the beauty of a 

 garden depends on its acreage, or on the amount of 

 money spent upon it. Nay, one would almost 

 prefer a small garden plot, so as to ensure that 

 ample justice shall be done to it* In a small 

 garden there is less fear of dissipated effort, more 

 chance of making friends with its inmates, more 

 time to spare to heighten the beauty of its effects. 



To some extent the success of a garden depends 

 upon favourable conditions of sun, soil, and water, 

 but more upon the choiceness of its contents, the 

 skill of its planting, the lovingness of its tendence. 

 Love for beauty has a way of enticing beauty ; the 

 seeing eye wins its own ranges of vision, finds 

 points of vantage in unlikely ground. '* I write in 

 a nook," says the poet Cowper, "that I call my 

 boudoir ; it is a summer-house, not bigger than a 

 sedan-chair ; the door of it opens into the garden 

 that is now crowded with pinks, roses, and honey- 

 suckles, and the windoiv into my neighbour s orchai'd. 

 It formerly served an apothecary as a smoking- 

 room ; at present, however, it is dedicated to 

 sublimer uses." What a mastery of life is here ! 



"As if life's business were a summer mood ; 

 As if all needful things would come unsought 

 To genial faith, still rich in genial good ; 



By our own spirits are we deified." 



But I must not finish the stanza in this connection. 



* " Embower a cottage thickly and completely with nothing but 

 roses, and nobody would desire the interference of another plant." 

 — Leigh Hunt. 



M 



