82 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



marvel of the daily miracle of being fills the re- 

 sponsive soul with wonder and thanksgiving. 



Now a garden offers, to most people, the best 

 alternative for this healing balsam of untrammelled 

 Nature. Some yearning of the sort, doubtless, 

 lies at the root of the newer impulse which, of 

 late years, has created the wild garden, the rock 

 garden, the water garden. We long to trans- 

 plant into our nearer reach, as a refuge from the 

 fussiness and trivial annoyances of daily life, some 

 little nook of our own, where we may recall the 

 solemn stillness of the forest, the strength of the 

 rocky fastness, half-veiled by clinging flowers, the 

 rippling stream with its ceaseless murmur of life 

 and blessing, the quiet pool, bearing white lilies 

 on its breast, reminding us of the rest to come 

 when at length it ringeth to evensong. 



Within living memory, and owing mainly to 

 the insistence of a master mind, whose untiring 

 energy and insight soon drew others with it, a 

 gradual but very real change has come over the 

 whole character of garden design in Great Britain. 

 The Garden Beautiful is laid out with greater art 

 on less artificial lines. The feeling of the day is 

 perceptibly more in touch with the freedom and 

 unstudied grace of Nature. The mind and work 

 of an artist is stamped now on many a garden 

 as plainly as on the pictured canvas. A slumber- 

 ing faculty has been awakened in not a few to 

 whom a garden has become the only expression, 

 within their compass, of that artistic sense which 

 is seldom wholly wanting even in those who have 

 but scant opportunities of culture. 



