io 4 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



the homespun garden, must be the almond. 

 " Flowery almond " the country folks call it, 

 in fine recognition of its lavish bloom, "the 

 Awakener " being its name in the Palestine of 

 its nativity. Since I may have all the almonds 

 I care for in this White-paper Garden, I will 

 have them by the score. They, too, belong 

 by right to the meek-eyed Puritan women. 

 Wherever they went, together with the lilac 

 and the sweetbriar rose, they carried the 

 Madonna lily and the almond. I wonder to 

 what subliminal consciousness they appealed, 

 since, surely, it was to something quite outside of 

 their narrow, colourless lives ! I wonder what ? 

 The charm of the almond is unspeakable. 

 Nothing loses more by being cut and carried 

 indoors. Yet the impulse to do so is all but 

 compelling. Nothing gains less by careful 

 culture. The almond is sufficient to itself, and 

 its long wands, beset with little pink roses, are 

 as lovely and as luxuriant by the doorstone 

 of an abandoned house as in a walled-in garden. 

 Loveliest of all are these when planted at the 

 orchard's edge, and the pink below reaches up 

 to the pink above in a harmony of colour, and a 

 grace of line that leaves nothing to be wished for. 



