MONASTIC GARDENS 59 



the wild and gloomy valley of Clairvaux, beside a clear 

 stream running through the midst of a thick forest. 

 An ardent lover of nature, " Trust one who has tried it," 

 he wrote ; " you will find more in woods than in books, 

 trees and stones will teach you what you can never 

 learn from school-masters." One of the most sacred 

 spots in the monastery, now sadly deprived of all its 

 ancient glory, was a little plot of ground whose culti- 

 vation was his especial care. Large gardens belonging 

 to the community lay within the cloisters, and outside 

 others stretched over clearings in the forest, covering 

 many acres. The several divisions of ground were 

 separated by intersecting canals supplied by the river 

 Alba. A glowing description of the orchard by a 

 twelfth-century writer is worth quoting: 



" If thou desire to know the situation of Clairvaux, 



. . the twelfth 



let those writings be to thee as a mirror. . . . I hen century, 

 the back part of the Abbey terminates in a broad 

 plain, no small portion of which a wall occupies, which 

 surrounds the Abbey with its extended circuit. Within 

 the enclosure of this wall many and various trees, 

 prolific in various fruits, constitute an orchard resem- 

 bling a wood. Which, being near the cell of the sick, 

 lightens the infirmities of the brethren with no 

 moderate solace, while it affords a spacious walking 

 place to those who walk, and a sweet place for re- 

 clining to those who are overheated. The sick man 



