48 A GARDEN OF PLEASURE 



years ! Thus, with February's first purple 

 crocus, for me unfailingly arises in a far-off 

 tender light the vision of some forgotten 

 garden wilderness enclosed with trees,, 

 beyond the town, where my mother and I 

 once walked together. There, as we rested 

 under the trees, appeared before us a 

 solitary purple Crocus, shining on the 

 grassy lawn ! After years, whose number 

 one scarcely cares to count, that moment's 

 joy is in sober truth recalled as the most 

 exquisite of a whole long lifetime. 



On the old brick south wall of the 

 kitchen garden our only plant of Pyrus 

 japonica is arrayed in finer bloom than 

 usual. Hardly an inch of brown wood 

 shows between the clustering red of a 

 thousand rich and brilliant blossoms. Last 

 autumn the fruit ripened (or, to be truer, 

 hardened) upon it in large green apples 

 of a pippin shape. What an old-fashioned 

 shrub it is ! and how seldom seen but in 

 old gardens : and how, in these days, one 

 never thinks of planting a new one. About 

 the roots of the Pyrus japonica, and along 

 the narrow border at the foot of the wall, 



