146 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



There are, to be sure, July days worthy of 

 Emerson's lines 



" Oh, tenderly the haughty day 

 Fills his blue urn with fire. 

 One morn is in the mighty heaven 

 And one in our desire." 



But these do not come every day, and, when 

 they do, belong to the wide landscape and the 

 far horizon, not to the garden. 



However, since July is here, it must have 

 such a garden as it may. The big brushes 

 which were put away in January must come 

 out again, and the colours must be laid on in 

 wide washes. The palette shall be set with 

 the yellows and blues that, rightly blended, 

 shall mean the greens I love. There must be 

 plenty of cool greys and purples for the shadow, 

 and white for the few flowers I shall care to 

 plant. I do not think a July garden need care 

 for any other flowers than white ones unless 

 I can find a few blues cool enough and distant 

 enough to suggest the far-away hills for which 

 the tired soul longs in the days when the heat 

 palpitates as an unseen flame about us. There 

 will certainly be none of the yellows and 

 scarlets of the Philistine. The world hardly 



