OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



in every surrounding. There is a pretty, stemmed fountain, 

 or rather bird-bath / in its centre, where, in a basin shaped 

 like a spreading lotus flower, a sturdy putto astride a dolphin 

 blows soundless blasts. This half-circle of vivid beauty, 

 with the young green grass, the swaying Tulips, the blue of 

 the Forget-me-nots against the moor is good to look 

 upon. 



Beyond the Hemicycle, the Azalea Glade runs down now 

 in lines of orange-rose and creamy-salmon, bordered too 

 with Forget me-nots. Up against it the cool silver of a 

 great Service-tree comes just where it makes a perfect 

 background/ and beyond that again the rivulets of blue in 

 the Reserve Garden lie deep below. 

 This is the hour of our garden's glory. No Delphinium 

 muster, no spreading garlands of Roses, can equal the 

 exquisite freshness, the fulness of life of this May world. 

 With the Brooms, white and yellow / with the pink foam 

 of the Floribunda trees, the incomparable gold and green 

 of the Beech and Birch, one wants to put one's arms round 

 the little place and kiss it. 



" So much work, so long and great a travail of nature/ 7 

 said a friend to us to-day / " ever since November, prepar- 

 ing for this wonderful revelation of bloom . . . and all for so 

 short a span ! All this beauty scarce reaches its climax 

 but it is already on the wane ! " 



Perhaps it is to give us an idea of the permanence of what 

 " eye hath not seen " beyond, that its glories are described 

 in terms of jewels/ and yet so perversely is one made that 

 it is the very fragility that endears here belowa sense 

 of the fleeting moment that gives ecstasy its finest edge. 

 No, this limited humanity of ours cannot conceive the 

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