OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 

 The book lies forgotten on my knee. The brown 

 Meerschaum grows cold in my hand. My eyes, lost in 

 musings among the flame-fringed logs, now peer beyond 

 the past half-century at a time which seems verily as far 

 distant and as little related to the present as that year 1636 

 stamped and still faintly discernible on the antique cast-iron 

 backplate of the fireplace. ... I see a farm-house in a 

 village of that province which in ancient days was known 

 as Ile-de-France <I hate your modern regime departements), 

 by name Mesnil-le-Roy / not far distant from Mantes, the 

 natty little town on the upper and green-watered Seine, 

 generally adverted to as M antes-la- Jolie. 

 Therein, during nearly a whole year, for reasons of delicate 

 health, resided a certain very small English boy French 

 enough in those tender years. In this delectable old place, 

 so full of good-smelling things in their seasons : hay, and 

 grain, and fruit, and at all times the health-restoring cow, 

 the house was in the spring-time covered with Glycine. 

 And with the adorable Glycine the small boy, who loved 

 flowers as much as milk and fruits and beasts, fell forth- 

 with in love. 



How that coquettish Jappy plant came originally to 

 find a footing in so rustic a corner as Mesnil-le-Roy is 

 more than I can account for. Your French peasant is 

 not, as a rule, addicted to the delights of flower raising / 

 and, in those distant days, Wisteria was still something 

 of a rarity anywhere. But there it was, already in 

 the sturdiest strength of its age, embracing the old 

 walls, forcing its fibrous wood into every cranny of the 

 greystone, framing every window, striving up the chimney 

 stacks and filling the air with honey sweetness. It must 

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