3IO THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



The hoarse song of the water came to us through a high myrtle 

 hedge as we stood in a little meadow strewn with daffodils, and 

 guarded by a statue of Pan green with moss. A delicious softness 

 seemed to spring in my veins from the soft turf my feet pressed, 

 and once again the sudden joy of living took away my breath. — 

 ' The Virgins of the Rocks, ^ translated by Agatha Hughes. 



*E. V. B.' A GARDEN! — The word is in itself a picture, and what 

 (Bon. Mrs t\ pictures it reveals ! All through the days of childhood the 

 °^ garden is our fairy-ground of sweet enchantment and innocent 



wonder. From the first dawn of thought, when we learned our 

 simple lessons of Eden and its loss, and seemed to see the thorn- 

 less garden, watered with clear streams, beautiful with spreading 

 trees, and the train of un-named beasts and birds meekly passing 

 before their spotless lord ; and then beyond, far onward to that 

 other garden beloved by the Man of Sorrows, Gethsemane, where 

 we could never picture the blossoming of roses or murmurous 

 hum of summer bees, but only the sombre garden walks, and One 

 kneeling among the olives, and dark, heavy drops upon the grass. 

 And near to this, the Garden of the Sepulchre — in a dewy dawn- 

 light, angel-haunted. These were our Gardens of the Soul. In 

 later years the mists of those older, holier spots wear away as 

 snow-wreaths in the vivid brilliance of the Gardens of Poetry. 

 Then, dreamlike from sapphire seas arose the Gardens of the 

 Hesperides, and we beheld the white-vestured maidens as they 

 danced around the golden-fruited dragon-guarded tree. Then 

 bloomed for us the gardens of Mediaeval Italy. The Poets' 

 gardens of cypress and lemon, of marble stairs and sparkling 

 fountains, with all their moonlight mirth and sorrow ; ilex-groves 

 of song and sih^er-threaded laughter ; visions of Rimini or gay 

 Boccaccio's tales. Then did we linger where high-piping night- 

 ingales sang to the Persian Rose in the Giilistan of Saadi : — felt 

 the pure sunlight shine in a little wilderness of roses, or the green 

 shade that lay round the apple-trees of Andrew Marvell ; or in the 



