24 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



Simple sights, you will say, and familiar ! and 

 yet, when connected with some unique occasion, 

 some epoch of a life, when seen on such a day, at 

 such a supreme, all-absorbing moment from window, 

 open door, terrace, arbour ; in the stillness or in 

 the wild rhetoric of the night, the familiar scene, 

 momentarily flashed upon the brain's retina, may 

 have subtly and unconsciously influenced the act, 

 or coloured the thought of some human being, and 

 the brand of that moment's impress may have 

 accompanied that soul to the edge of doom. 



Because of its hoarded memories we come to 

 look upon an old garden as a sort of repository of 

 old secrets ; wrapped within its confines, as within 

 the covers of a sacred book, repose so many pages 

 of the sad and glad legend of humanity. We have 

 before us the scenery of old home idylls, of old 

 household reverences and customs, of old life's give 

 and take its light comedy or solemn farce, its dark 

 tragedy, its summer masque, its stately dance or 

 midnight frolic, its happy wedlock or its open sorrow, 

 its endured wrong. The place is identified with, the 

 fortunes of old families : for so many generations has 

 the old place been found favourable for lovers' tales, 

 for youths' golden dreams, for girls' chime of fancy, 

 for the cut and thrust of friendly wrangles, for the 

 " leisures of the spirit " of student-recluse, for chil- 

 dren's gambols and babies' lullabies. Seated upon 

 this mossy bank, children have spelt out fairy tales, 

 while birds, trees, brooks, and flowers listened to- 

 gether. The marvel of its cloistered grace has been 



