The Happy Garden 



There we turn : and with the pines swinging 

 above us, and the sun mottling their stems, and 

 all about us a haze of purple and gold, we gaze 

 down into the garden gleaming like a jewel of 

 emeralds and sapphires, with here and there a 

 ruby in its dark setting. 



" A blue garden," says Jane. 



It is not really blue, but it has that effect 

 which comes from the rigorous application of an 

 elemental law which forbids a crude yellow. 



Yellow is taboo. 



It is an arrogant, upstart, vulgar colour, which 

 will not admit the right of any other to exist. It 

 is a tyrant, and in my garden meets the fate of all 

 tyrants. It is rooted out : and so, to my thinking, 

 it should be in all gardens. 



A passion for laurels is often accompanied by 

 a taste for sunflowers, and when the garden and I 

 were first acquainted, it was delivered over to the 

 dominion of every size and shape of sunflower. 

 It did not so much matter then, as there was no 

 "attempt at colour or form, and the three acres 

 were almost all stubble and cabbage beds. Sun- 

 flowers grew everywhere, and, like everything else, 

 seeded themselves with indecent haste and persist- 

 ency. . . . For years' they tormented. Like 

 Frederick the Great, I waged a "Seven Years' War, 



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