212 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



Or it may be he is on the breezy waste, lying full 

 length among the heather, watching the rabbits' 

 gambols, or the floating thistle-down with its hint of 

 unseen life in the air, or sauntering by the stream in 

 the lower meadows, learning afresh the glory of weed 

 life in the lush magnificence of the great docks, 

 the red sorrel, the willow-herb, the purple thistles, 

 and the gay battalions of fox-gloves thrown out in 

 skirmishing order, that swarm on each eminence and 

 hedgerow. Or you may meet him hastening home 

 for the evening view from the orchard-terrace, to see 

 the solemn close of day, and the last gleam of sun- 

 shine fading over the hill. 



It is \vorth something, I say, to win clear hold of 

 the fact that Nature in a garden and Nature in the 

 wild are at unity ; that they have each their place in 

 the economy of human life, and that each should have 

 its share in man's affections. The true gardener is in 

 touch with both. He knows where this excels or 

 falls behind the other, and because he , knows the 

 range of each, he fears no comparison between them. 

 He can be eloquent upon the charms of a garden, its 

 stimulus for the tired eye and mind, the harmony 

 that resides in the proportions of its lines and masses, 

 the gladness of its colour, the delight of its frankly 

 decorative arrangement, the sense of rest that comes 

 of its symmetry and repeated patterns. He will tell 

 you that for halcyon days, when life's wheels run 

 smooth, and the sun shines, even for life's average 

 days, there is nothing so cheery, nothing so blithely 

 companionable, nothing that can give such a sense of 



