INTRODUCTION 



" WITHOUT Sun I keep silence," says an old 

 sun-dial. "Though silent I speak," says another. 

 In these two mottoes lies the secret of the power 

 and the living charm of all gardens ; a secret, the 

 meaning of which is precipitated by the alchemy 

 of silence. For a garden is silent to the ear 

 only; to every other sense it is eloquent and ex- 

 quisitely musical. " Silence," says Carlyle, " is 

 the element in which all great things fashion 

 themselves together; that at length they may 

 emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the day- 

 light of life." It is in silence that a Garden 

 blossoms, without boasting of what it is going to 

 do. Once it has blossomed it speaks the univer- 

 sal language that all can understand. 



A Garden is our happiest means for evoking 

 Nature's mystic as well as Nature's sensible 

 music. It is in itself the consummate eloquence 

 of the living silence of sunlight a silence in 

 which sunlight, with the aid of earth's elements, 

 expresses itself in the lovely colors of flowers. 

 What sound is to the ear that color may be said 



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