KELMSCOTT HOUSE 



among the olives beside the midland sea). . . . The house could 

 easily be done up at a cost of money . . . the garden is really 

 most beautiful. If you come to think of it, you will find that 

 you won't get a garden or a house with much character unless 

 you go out as far as the Upper Mall, and I don't think that either 

 you or I could stand a modern house in a street. . . ." 



This praise of his London garden is not exaggerated. There is 

 only a small plot of ground in front ; with two scrubby bushes of 

 box, so far as I remember on either side of the front door. " It 

 neither ' clothes ' nor gives grace to the house," but at the 

 back stretches -away, almost to King Street, Hammersmith, the 

 loveliest and most extensive town-garden that it has fallen to 

 my lot to describe and to depict. I do not, of course, compare 

 it with the '' princely gardens," to repeat once more Bacon's 

 famous phrase but with those usually attached to 'the middle- 

 class Londoner's home. 



Strictly speaking, at Kelmscott House there are three gardens, each 

 opening out of the other connected, however, by an encircling walk. 



A wide, smooth lawn, much used for tennis and bowls, and 

 shaded by splendid trees among them a fine tulip tree is the 

 principal feature of the first garden. A row of terra-cotta vases, 

 almost large enough to hold a small man, therefore sometimes 

 called the " AH Baba " pots, which are Italian oil jars, used in 

 importing olive oil, cuts off the lawn at the lower end. When I 

 saw them, they were filled with scarlet geraniums, as seen in the 

 drawing ; it was remarked significantly that " of course they were 

 not there in Morris's time." No doubt they were held to be 

 vulgar by the worshippers of the sunflower and the lily ; and 

 vulgarity indeed is too mild a term applied to geraniums when 

 they are contrasted with a garish yellow ; but that Morris 

 himself considered them as altogether beyond the pale, and that 

 he started the prejudice against them, seems almost incredible 

 in face of his efforts to get pure, bright dyes in his vats. His 

 infallible eye for colour enabled him to harmonize everything, 

 even tints inherently discordant ; and he could not have failed 

 to realize the preciousness of a dash of scarlet which is as valuable 

 sometimes as a touch of black in a decorative scheme but then 

 Morris would never have contrasted it with calceolaria-yellow ; 

 and that is exactly jwhat the ordinary garden-lover does ! 



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