CHAPTER XX 



GARDENS OF SWEET SCENT AND SENTIMENT 



AFTER many gardens have been considered, 

 and their inhabitants have been located and 

 scanned, it often seems that those in which 

 the individuality of the owners had run riot were the 

 ones to live longest in the memory. For the garden 

 is not only a place in which to make things grow and to 

 display the beautiful flowers of the earth, but a place 

 that should accord with the various moods of its ad- 

 mirers. It should be a place in which to hold light ban- 

 ter, a place in which to laugh, and, besides, should have 

 a hidden corner in which to weep. But above all, per- 

 haps, it should be a place of sweet scent and sentiment. 

 A garden without the fragrance of flowers would be 

 deprived of one of its true rights. Fortunately, those 

 near the sea are unusually redolent of sweet scent, 

 the soft moisture of the atmosphere that surrounds 

 them causing their fragrance to be more readily per- 

 ceived than if the atmosphere were harsh and dry. 

 It is still an open question to what extent the memory 

 and the imagination of people are stirred by scents 

 recurring at intervals through their existence. To 

 many the perfume of flowers has more meaning than 

 their outward beauty. In it they feel the spirit and 

 the eternity of the flowers. 



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