CHAPTER V 



THE WHITE ROCKERY 



I AM frankly and absolutely for a formal garden. 

 This may turn you away from me, but I hope not. 

 Once and for all I declare against the thing called 

 ' landscape - gardening/ and cleave to classic pre- 

 cedents. Note the high tone I take in this matter. 

 With a house like mine there really is some excuse 

 for seeking to ignore it, and developing a garden that 

 shall be independent of architecture so dreadful ; 

 but no, I will be just ; my garden shall shame my 

 house by its correct proportions and proper adher- 

 ence to what a garden ought to be. Not that this 

 garden is classic far from that ; I wish it was. But 

 it is a garden, no mere feeble deception. It is a 

 small piece of ground enclosed by walls ; and, con- 

 cerning those walls, you are in no doubt for one 

 moment. There is not the least attempt to imitate 

 natural scenery. There are no winding walks, no 

 boskages, no sylvan dells, no grottoes stuck with stones 

 and stalactites. My garden is simply an artificial, but 

 none the less beautiful, arrangement of all the best 

 plants that I can contrive to collect. 



Consider the word ' garden.' It develops by evolu- 

 tion from the Anglo-Saxon 'geard' and the Middle 



54 



