A GARDEN OF DELIGHT 181 



corner, across the lawns and the steep Rock 

 garden on the slope. Then on by pathways 

 arched over with trained Pears in full blossom 

 springing from narrow borders crammed with 

 brilliant Spring flowers, where white Narcissi 

 and Ornithogalum (to be succeeded by Tulips 

 of all colours) rise from the grass among 

 pyramid Plums and Apples. But all this was 

 as nothing to what was to follow. 



On each side of the straight path towards 

 the Water Garden, the broad borders, filled 

 eight months before with a glory of Summer 

 flowers, were now a mass of nothing but seed- 

 ling Polyanthus, so thickly planted as to hide 

 the earth, backed by Wallflowers and the 

 pointed buds of Golden Crown Tulips to come, 

 among which the standards of Hydrangea stood, 

 now bare and closely pruned, to delight us in 

 Summer with their great heads of white. But 

 when we turned past the kitchen garden and 

 reached the line of Lily ponds of the valley, I 

 confess my breath came short. It was indeed a 

 living poem written in flowers that lay before me. 



A tracery of white pear blossom ran over the 



