CHAPTER XII 



THE AUTUMN GARDEN 



A quelques choses malheur est bon. It is 

 not until we have been obliged perforce to 

 spend long weeks in or about the house, with 

 no change of scene beyond a feeble prowl 

 round the garden, that we discover how much 

 of our enjoyment or discomfort depends on the 

 planting and general disposition of that same 

 garden. When for a time it constitutes the 

 limit of our horizon, we grow quick to see 

 where schemes have failed, or where success or 

 happy accident has crowned them, producing 

 such harmonies of line and colour as may give 

 repose and healing calm to tired nerves and 

 brain. And these failures or successes are 

 specially evident in Autumn. In Spring and 

 Summer the riot of colour, the beauty of each 

 individual flower, is joy enough in itself to 



