THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



cedar and hickory stairs and benches. *'Have 

 none of them," was Colonel Waring's injunc- 

 tion; "they are forever out of repair." 



But I fear another reason is that so often our 

 gardens are neither for private ease nor social 

 joy, but for public display and are planned 

 mainly for street exhibition. That is the way 

 we commonly treat garden fountains ! We 

 make a smug show of unfenced, unhedged, uni- 

 versal hospitality across a sidewalk boundary 

 which nevertheless we hold inviolate — some- 

 times by means of a painted sign or gas-pipe — 

 and never say "Have a seat" to the dearest 

 friend in any secluded nook of our shrubberies, 

 if there is such a nook. How many of us know 

 a fountain beside an embowered seat where one, 

 — or two, — with or without the book of verses, 

 can sit and hear it whisper or watch the moon- 

 light cover it with silent kisses ? In my limited 

 experience I have known of but two. One is 

 by the once favorite thought-promoting sum- 

 mer seat of Augustus Saint-Gaudens on his own 

 home acre in Vermont; the other I need not 

 particularize further than to say that it is one 



