RAMSCLIFFE 



It would seem to be a law that the purest and truest human pleasure in 

 a garden is attained by means whose ratio is exactly inverse to the scale 

 or degree of the garden's magnificence. The design, for instance, of a 

 Versailles impresses one with a sense of ostentatious consciousness of 

 magnitude ; out of scale with living men and women ; whose lives 

 could only be adapted to it, as we know they were, by an existence full 

 of artificial restraints and discomforts ; the painful and arbitrarily 

 imposed conditions of a tyrannical and galling etiquette. 



So we think also of our greatest gardens, such as Chatsworth. It is 

 visited by a large number of people who go to see it as a large expensive 

 place to gape at, but surely not for the truest love of a garden. So it is 

 with many a large place ; the size and grandeur of the garden may suit 

 the great house as a design ; it may be imposing and costly, it may 

 be beautifully kept, and yet it may lack all the qualities that are needed 

 for simple pleasure and refreshment. It is not till we come to some old 

 garden of moderate size that has always been cherished and has never 

 been radically altered, that the true message of the garden can be 

 received and read ; and it is from thence downward in the scale of 

 grandeur that we find those gardens that are the happiest and best of all 

 for true delight and close companionship ; the simple borders of hardy 

 flowers, planted and tended with constant watchfulness and loving care 

 by the owner's own hands. 



Such a garden is this of Mr. Elgood's ; in a midland county, and 

 on a strong soil that throws up good hardy plants in vigorous 

 luxuriance. Here grow the great Orange Lilies — the Herring Lilies of 



58 



