ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 255 



has subdued nature, so that instead of its Ideas it bears as tokens 

 of its slavery the forms which correspond to that will, and which 

 are forcibly imposed upon it — clipped hedges, trees cut into all 

 kinds of forms, straight alleys, aud arched avenues. — Arthur 

 Schopenhauer^ ' The World as Will and Idea ' {Isolated Remarks 

 on natural Beauty). 



— A/WW— 



p'T in Arcadia Ego! 'I, too, have been a gardener' ! Yes, ALPHONSE 



I, too, have had as my first cradle a little rustic garden, P?iwr arxtnf 

 hemmed in by a wall of unmortared stones, upon one of those (1790- 1869). 

 parched and sombre hills which you see from here to the limits 

 of your horizon ; there were to be found (for the more than 

 modest mediocrity of my father's fortune did not allow it) neither 

 vast tracts, nor majestic shade, nor gushing waters, nor rare 

 flowers, nor precious fruits, nor costly plants ; a few narrow 

 alleys strewn with red sand, edged with wild carnations, violets 

 and primroses, and bordering plots of vegetables for the nurture 

 of the family. Well,. there, and not in the gardens of Italy or of 

 the great proprietors of the parks of France, Germany, or England, 

 I have experienced the first and most poignant delights that it is 

 given to Nature to inspire in a soul, in a child's or youth's imagina- 

 tion. I dwell now in gardens vaster and more artistically planted 

 but I have kept my predilection for that one. I keep it as a 

 precious possession, in its ancient poverty of shade, water, flowers, 

 and fruits ; and when I have a few rare hours of liberty and solitude 

 snatched from public affairs or labours of the mind to give to 

 vague self-communings, it is to this garden I go to spend them. 

 Yes, in this poor enclosure, long since deserted, emptied by 

 death ; in these alleys overrun by weeds, by moss, and the 

 pinks from the beds under those old trunks drained of sap, but 

 not of souvenirs — on this unraked sand, my eye still seeks the 

 footprints of my mother, of my sisters, old friends, old servants 

 of the family, and I go and sit under the fence opposite the house, 

 which is buried year by year deeper under the ivy, beneath the 



