108 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



of the past? Had the paths where it grew 

 been obliterated by the encroachments of a 

 ruthless civilization, or had the tide of human 

 life drawn away from it and left it to be en 

 gulfed by the forest from which it had once 

 been wrested, with nothing left to mark it 

 but a gnarled old lilac tree? I have chanced 

 upon such spots in the heart of the wood, 

 where the lilac and the apple tree and the old 

 stoned cellar wall are all that are left to test 

 ify to the human life that once centred there. 

 Or had the garden from which its seed was 

 blown only fallen into a quiet decay, deserted 

 but not destroyed, left to bloom unchecked 

 and untended, and fling its seeds to the sum 

 mer winds that its flowers might &quot;escape&quot; 

 whither they would? 



Lately, I chanced upon such a garden. I 

 was walking along a quiet roadside, almost 

 dusky beneath the shade of close-set giant 

 maples, when an unexpected fragrance 

 breathed upon me. I lingered, wondering. It 

 came again, in a warm wave of the August 

 breeze. I looked up at the tangled bank beside 

 me surely, there was a spray of box peep 

 ing out through the tall weeds! There was a 



