KINGS IN GARDENS 



blots of colour, accidents of sunlight, fantastic 

 silhouettes of trees ; or have they the imprint of 

 the human mind to give them sweetness ? 



" Only the dead are very great ; their ghostly 

 existence prevails more than did their actual 

 personality. Napoleon is so great now that he 

 has almost ceased to be a fact and has become 

 an idea. St. Francis of Assisi is more a state of 

 mind than a little man in a tattered habit. The 

 magnificence of the Emperor Maximilian is a 

 legend, and Keats is a voice. 



" Gardens help one to understand this because 

 they are places of prepared quiet ; unprepared 

 Nature has too much personality for very quiet 

 thought. Trees talk, streams talk, great moun- 

 tains have voices of their own ; but in a garden all 

 things are bound together in a great harmony. 



" I admit to you the world is full of niggards 

 who put on tinted spectacles and say the sun is 

 dark, but even in those minds there are secret 

 passages and quiet chambers where, if one could 

 look, I think one would find a woman or a child." 



Now when he has finished speaking, there 

 arises as always in this dream the sound of 

 many birds at their vespers, and the garden is 

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