EDMOND DE GONCOURT i.^^ 



at the corner of the walk, half hidden under a thick clump of 

 shrubs, a small-leaved chorchorus had flowered during the night. 

 Gay and fresh as a bunch of bridal flowers, the little shrub glittered 

 before me in all the attraction of its opening beauty. What spring- 

 like innocence, what soft and modest loveliness there was in 

 these white corollas, opening gently to the sun, like thoughts 

 which smile upon us at waking, and perched upon their young 

 leaves of virginal green like bees upon the wing ! Mother of 

 marvels, mysterious and tender Nature, why do we not live more 

 in thee ? . . . A modest garden and a country rectory, the narrow 

 horizon of a garret, contain for those who know how to look and 

 to wait, more instruction than a library. — 2^th April 1852 {Lancy). 



2,1st October 1852 {Lancy). Walked for half an hour in the 

 garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of 

 autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and 

 mists hovered about the distant mountains, — a melancholy nature. 

 The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth 

 under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of chattering birds 

 were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing 

 games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. 

 Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever 

 penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there 

 is in each detail. — Journal Intime {translated by Mrs Humphry 

 Ward). 



— na/W'— 



n^HE garden, which I had bought with my house, although planted EDMOND 



*- with common, vulgar, philistine shrubs, still possessed one goncourT 

 beauty. At the bottom of it stood a superb group of huge trees (1822-1896). 

 of the ancient Montmorency Park, all draped in ivy and unfolding 

 over the head of a low rock one of those great fans of verdure, 

 with which Watteau shades the repose and siesta of his courtly 

 groups. This I had to preserve, while uprooting all the rest, and 

 to set this bouquet of great trees in a centre of hardy evergreen 



