286 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



woman, and almost always to a woman who 

 has known sorrow. 



It is when the lamps are lighted that the 

 indoor garden shows its most poetic side. 

 Against walls and curtains they cast their 

 shadows of waving frond, and swaying tendril, 

 and wide leafage, a fantastic company to which 

 guests might will be bidden as to a feast. 



Where are they gone, the shadows that I 

 used to know ? Where is the old firelight, and 

 the old lamplight which called them into life ? 

 Where are the eyes which once looked upon 

 their beauty, and the voices which once praised 

 their fitful loveliness ? Shadows also ? Or is 

 there another World, where the Realities are, 

 and is it I who am a shadow waiting to be 

 born? 



The best winter gardens at our command are 

 those laid down on the lines dear to our 

 ancestors of Colonial days. By what sense of 

 fitness they chose the style of architecture best 

 fitted to the uses of the States that were not but 

 were to be, and the gardens best suited to the 

 architecture, the climate, and what ought to be 

 the dominant American ideal, I cannot tell, 

 nor can I divest my mind of an earnest belief 



