THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN 113 



object and the reason so simply explained and demonstrated, 

 the beauty of the snow, the glory of the storm, the wonder of the 

 stars — all in the appointed season served the beautiful mind 

 to illustrate the wisdom of the Creator." 



Can there be a more propitious spot for the best development 

 of the child, the youth, than a place of fresh and changing 

 beauty? Warley Place passed into the possession of Miss Ellen 

 Willmott's parents when she was very young. From her early 

 days Miss Willmott took much interest in the gardens, assisting 

 her mother in their management. In due course they passed 

 into her complete control. The result — not merely a career, 

 unexampled in success, of a woman botanist and authority 

 in horticulture, but the irradiating of the world of flowers 

 everywhere by the knowledge that has spread from those 

 gardens. 



Another meaning of the garden, and this a great one, is that 

 sympathy it brings, not only between us and our own country- 

 men, between English-speaking people, but between those of 

 different nationalities and those in the remotest corners of "this 

 bewildering ball," as Thomas Hardy lately has it. Through our 

 own gardening possessions do we not feel an interest in the 

 municipal rose-garden lately established at Rio de Janeiro; in 

 the stone pines and terraces of the gardens of the Bosphonis, 

 gardens so perfectly set forth in print by Mr. H. G. Dwight; 

 in the garden at Maadi near Cairo, out of which has come that 

 charming little book. Gardening for the Sub-Tropics; in the little 

 balcony-gardens of Parisian houses periodically furnished forth 

 with new flowers by the nearest florist; in the garden of the 

 Duca di Bronte at Taormina; that of the Palazzo Rufolo at 

 Ravello; the garden of Mrs. Morris at Hwai Yuen, China, 

 whence lately she writes: "The house to-day is filled with wild 

 flowers; two hundred Regal lilies stand about the rooms"; the 



