388 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



the landscape a splendid dash of purple, lending a 

 pleasant contrast to the yellow gorse, which, as we all 

 know is, like kissing, never out of season, and later 

 again the foxgloves paint the woods with their dainty 

 bells. But the declining year changes the face of 

 Nature ; the heather is in perfect bloom, the bracken 

 has turned to a warm brown, but most lovely of all are 

 the ruddy tints of the beech trees, which in the autumn 

 sun shine like burnished copper. 



My wife's great pleasure lies in her garden, and the 

 sunshine repays her for the trouble and thought she 

 expends upon it, for it is noticed by all that the tints of 

 her flowers are deeper and of a brighter hue than is 

 found in the same flowers grown in gardens at a lower 

 level, so that not only to ourselves, but to our friends who 

 participate in its abundance, is the labour returned. In 

 the spring the special beauty of the garden lies in the 

 daffodils ; surely nothing can exceed the delicacy and 

 the beauty of the many varieties of this flower. The 

 wild daffodil is also found in our neighbourhood, in a 

 field adjoining West Horsley Place, and some of these 

 go to brighten the lives of the school children 

 in London. Primroses and hyacinths from the woods 

 are also sent, besides cowslips in their season, and 

 when woodland and field flowers come to an end our 

 garden supplies the need. The pleasure that these 

 flowers give to the poor children can well be under- 

 stood when one remembers the touching story of the 

 city child who describes the country as " the yard in 

 which the gentlemen played." 



The pathetic sadness of a garden in autumn, when 

 the glories of the youth and of the maturity of the 

 year have passed away, is fortunately relieved by the 

 blooms of the chrysanthemum, a flower which we owe 

 to our wonderful friends the Japanese. Here the 



