ARRANGEMENT II9 



I would have the approaches to a Rosary made 

 purposely obscure and narrow, that the visitor 

 may come with a sudden gladness and wonder 

 upon the glowing scene, as the traveller by rail 

 emerges from the dark tunnel into the brightness 

 of day and a fair landscape ; or as some dejected 

 whist-player finds, at the extremity of wretched 

 cards, the ace, king, and queen of trumps ! I 

 should like to conduct the visitors to my Rosarium 

 between walls of rock- work, thickly set with those 

 unassuming but exquisite Alpine plants, of which 

 Mr. Robinson has given us such a complete and 

 charming history, or through high fern-covered 

 banks ; and, by a sudden turn at the end of our 

 avenue, to dazzle him into an ecstasy. He sliould 

 feel as Kane the explorer did, when after an Arctic 

 winter he saw the sun shine once more, and " felt 

 as though he were bathing in perfumed waters." 



Although water offered itself in a fair running 

 stream for introduction into the Rose-garden, I 

 should hesitate timidly as to its admission. Charm- 

 ing as it would be to see the Roses reflected, like 

 Narcissus, in such a mirror — to muse upon 

 beauty, like Plato beneath the planes which grew 

 by the waters of Ilissus — we should simultaneously 

 strengthen the cruel power of our fiercest enemy, 

 frost. Let us content ourselves with cisterns for 



