14 A BOOK ABOUT THE GAEDEN. 



find a lovelier scene than this. The sun set upon a 

 wiser and a happier man. Henceforth his eyes, and 

 ears, and heart were opened, to see, not only such 

 scenes of grandeur as that which had just passed 

 away, but traces of a divine beauty in the minutest 

 works around him ; to hear ' the manifold soft 

 chimes ' of bird, and breeze, and stream ; to love 

 them one and all. The next morning Monsieur 

 Alphonse Karr began that ' Tour round my Garden,' 

 which I now urge you first to read, and then to realize. 

 " You call yourself a gardener, and a florist, but if 

 you were so, earnestly and thoroughly, you would not 

 be now inquiring what recreation brings to man the 

 longer and larger happiness. You would have known 

 ere this that 'gardening,' as Lord Bacon tells us, 'is 

 the purest of human pleasures, the greatest refresh- 

 ment to the spirit of man,' and that ' the life and 

 felicity of an excellent gardener is,' as truly now as 

 when Evelyn wrote, ' to be preferred before all other 

 diversions.' Hear evidence which you cannot dispute, 

 but must sign seal and deliver, as your own act and 

 deed. This very day, in the most dismal month of 

 our English year 



' No sun, no niooc, 

 No morn, no noon, 

 No vember,' 



you have had your chief enjoyment from your garden. 

 After breakfast you went into your rosary, and you 

 cut a bouquet from Gloire de Dijon, Madame Masson, 

 Jules Margottin, Madame Domage, Senateur Vaisse, 

 and Souvenir de la Malinaison ; which, placed on 



