THE GARDEN AND ITS ACCESSORIES 



supposed that one would rely upon it to 

 catch a train, although if so, he might be no 

 worse off than he would if guided by some 

 watches or clocks. 



If the reader is possessed with a love for 

 things eternal he will be pleased with the 

 sentiment on sun-dials that Charles Lamb 

 has expressed. It deserves to be quoted 

 in full : 



" What an antique air had the now almost effaced 

 sun-dials with their moral inscriptions, seeming co- 

 evals with that time which they measured, and 

 to take their revelations of its flight immediately 

 from heaven, holding correspondence with the foun- 

 tain of light ! How would the dark line steal im- 

 perceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood 

 eager to detect its movement, never catched, nice as 

 an evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep ! 



" Ah ! yet doth beauty like a dial hand 

 Steal from its figure, and no pace perceived. 



" What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous 

 em bowel men ts of lead and brass, its pert or solemn 

 dulness of communication, compared with the 

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