148 Old Time Gardens 



Persia that it ought really to be a native plant. 

 Its very color seems typical of New England ; some 

 parts of celestial blue, with more of warm pink, 

 blended and softened by that shading of sombre 

 gray ever present in New England life into a dis- 

 tinctive color known everywhere as lilac — a color 

 grateful, quiet, pleasing, what Thoreau called a 

 " tender, civil, cheerful color." Its blossoming at 

 the time of Election Day, that all-important New 

 England holiday, gave it another New England sig- 

 nificance. 



There is no more emblematic flower to me than 

 the Lilac ; it has an association of old homes, of 

 home-making and home interests. On the country 

 farm, in the village garden, and in the city yard, the 

 lilac was planted wherever the home was made, and 

 it attached itself with deepest roots, lingering some- 

 times most sadly but sturdily, to show where the 

 home once stood. 



Let me tell of two Lilacs of sentiment. One of 

 them is shown on page 149 ; a glorious Lilac tree 

 which is one of a group of many full-flowered, pale- 

 tinted ones still growing and blossoming each spring 

 on a deserted homestead in old Narragansett. 

 They bloom over the grave of a fine old house, and 

 the great chimney stands sadly in their midst as a 

 gravestone. " Hopewell," ill-suited of name, was 

 the home of a Narragansett Robinson famed for 

 good cheer, for refinement and luxury, and for a 

 lovely garden, laid out with cost and care and filled 

 with rare shrubs and flowers. Perhaps these Lilacs 

 were a rare variety in their day, being pale of tint ; 



