THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



so soon cometh up as a flower and presently 

 has withered. 



One of our most gifted literary critics a while 

 ago pointed out the poetic charm of evanescence; 

 pointed it out more plainly, I fancy, than it has 

 ever been shown before. But evanescence has 

 this poetic charm chiefly in nature, almost never 

 in art. The transitoriness of a sunset glory, or of 

 human life, is rife with poetic pathos because 

 it is a transitoriness which cannot be helped. 

 Therein lay the charm of that poetic wonder 

 and marvel of its day (1893) the Columbian Ex- 

 position's "White City"; it was an architectural 

 triumph and glory which we could not have ex- 

 cept on condition that it should vanish with the 

 swiftness of an aurora. Even so, there would 

 have been little poetry in its evanescence if, 

 through bad workmanship or any obvious folly, 

 it had failed to fulfil the transient purpose for 

 which it was erected. The only poetic evanes- 

 cence is the evanescence that is inevitable. An 

 unnecessary evanescence in things we make is 

 bad art. If I remember the story correctly, it 

 was to a Roman lady that Benvenuto Cellini 



70 



