A Moonlight Garden 419 



livelier green of Elm and Maple and Birch ; gray 

 farm-houses with vast barns ; little towns of thrifty 

 white houses clustered around slender church-spires 

 which, set thickly over this sunny land, point every- 

 where to heaven, and tell, as if speaking, the story 

 of New England's past, of her foundation on love of 

 God, just as the fields and orchards and highways 

 speak of thrift and honesty and hard labor ; and 

 the houses, such as this of Indian Hill, of kindly 

 neighborliness and substantial comfort ; and as this 

 old garden speaks of a love of the beautiful, a refine- 

 ment, an aesthetic and tender side of New England 

 character which we know, but into which as Mr. 

 Underwood says in Quabbin, that fine study of 

 New England life " strangers and Kiplings cannot 



enter." 



Seven hundred feet of double flower border, four- 

 teen hundred feet of flower bed, twelve feet wide! 

 " It do swallow no end of plants," says the gar- 

 dener." 



In spite of the banishing dictum of many artists 

 in regard to white flowers in a garden, the presence 

 of ample variety of white flowers is to me the 

 greatest factor in producing harmony and beauty 

 both by night and day. White seems to be as 

 important a foil in some cases as green. It may 

 sometimes be given to the garden in other ways 

 than through flower blossoms, by white marble 

 statues, vases, pedestals, seats. 



We all like the approval of our own thoughts by 

 men of genius; with my love of white flowers I had 

 infinite gratification in these words of Walter Savage 



