THE MEANING OF THE GARDEN 115 



' Bells have been ringing for you in every direction. Where can you 

 have been ? ' 



" * I have been in Corisande's garden,' said Lothair, ' and she has 

 given me a rose.' " 



Of architecture and sculpture in the garden it is hardly neces- 

 sary to speak. These arts are bound up with its very existence. 

 And I venture to say that no group of gardening men and women 

 yet have used such restraint in their use of sculptural work in 

 gardens as the American group. Very little marble and stone in 

 figures or fountains is seen in our gardens, and this is well; a 

 delicate and advised use of stone and marble in the gardens of 

 a young nation is the safe course. One happy instance comes 

 here to my mind; it is that youthful dreaming face in the John 

 Scheepers garden at the New York Flower Show of 1921. Look- 

 ing do^-n a vista suggesting the green shade of a walled, tree- 

 sheltered garden in spring, we saw that graceful figure in its 

 tones of quietest green, with its foreground of violet hyacinths 

 Grand Maltre and purple pansies with the deep-yellow double 

 tulip called Mr. Van der Hoef, along the sides of this garden. 

 Was not that bit of sculptors' art perfection in that place? And 

 in all the confusion of that crowded show, did there not steal 

 upon the least sensitive, as they looked at that garden picture, 

 a sense of peace, a sense too of the attainable in beauty? For 

 here lies — in that word, "attainable" — the glorious democ- 

 racy of garden beauty. 



And the last, and not the least, of the meanings of the garden 

 to all thoughtful people is that it furthers friendship. It may — 

 it will — create a true democracy. In that subtle and beautiful 

 novel by E. M. Forster, Howard's End, there are two words on 

 the title page, the key to the book. These are : " Only Connect." 

 Like the refrain of a song have these words haunted me. They 



