In the Garden 43 



As a childless man watching robust youth at play 

 discovers a pensive delight in imagining the son who 

 never can be his, so the gravel walk and the rose- 

 bushes suggest many a visionary plan of this quite 

 impossible volume. It is not to be a book for use or 

 consecutive reading, but one to lie in that nook of the 

 summer-house where a thumbed Chaucer and a worn 

 ' Decameron ' adjoin the jar of tobacco, and provide 

 entertainment when the rushing thunder-shower is 

 pelting the green leaves and making a babbling 

 waterway of the path. The binding should be of strong 

 leather, and the type large and pleasant Pictures 

 and illustrations there will be none, but the head-pieces 

 and the tail-pieces are to be ingeniously devised and 

 formed of English material. Blossomy twigs of pear 

 and plum tree like Aaron's rod that budded, an apple 

 shining ruddy among withering leaves, sprays of roses 

 half-opened, tall sunflowers, and hollyhocks, and 

 dahlias, beds of fragrant pink and gilliflower, a line 

 of daisies white and red, pure snowdrop and yellow 

 crocus flouting at winter, fair lilies and daffodils such 

 as Herrick loved, making a glory of Spring ; drawings 

 of these not with garish and obtrusive splendour, but 

 modestly, are to be laid across the top of the page. 

 For the bottom I would ravish field, and wood, and 

 river-side. Golden whin with a grey linnet's nest, 

 ' the broom, the yellow broom,' a mossy crab and 

 trailing mistletoe, cowslip and wild marigold and 

 violet, forget-me-nots blowing on the fallow where the 



