THE CHARM OF GARDENS 



in the flower-market at Saint Malo and carried it across 

 the sea, each bloom tied up to a friendly length of cane. 

 His neighbours marvel at his pains, but it recalls many 

 a happy day to him. 



There, in a corner under a nut-tree, is a grass bank 

 thick with Primrose plants another memory. A picture 

 comes to him from the Primroses very clear, very dis- 

 tinct, a picture of the world gone black, of a day when a 

 boy thought heaven and earth purposeless, cruel ; when 

 he ran from a garden to the woods and threw himself on 

 a bank, covered with Primroses, sobbing and weeping 

 till the world was blotted out with his tears, because 

 his dog had died. It had been the first thing he had 

 learnt to love, the first thing he had had to care for, 

 to look after. All his childish ideas were whispered into 

 the big retriever's silky coat. They had secret under- 

 standings, a different language, ideas in common, and 

 the dog's death was his first hint of death in the world. 

 Years after, when he planted this garden, he gave a 

 place to Don, and planted the Primroses himself. The 

 earth was kindly and the flowers flourished. The earth 

 is kindly, even your cynic knows that and marks the 

 spot where he hopes to lie, and thinks, not sourly, of 

 the Daisies over his head. 



There is something more than memory in a garden. 

 There is that urgent need man has to be part of growing 

 life. He must have open spaces, he takes health from 

 the sight of a tree in bud, from the sight of a newly 

 ploughed field, from a plant or so in a window-box, a 

 flower in his button-hole. Men, who by a thousand ties 

 are held at desks in cities, look up and hear a caged 

 thrush sing, and their thoughts fly out to fields and the 

 common wayside flowers, and, for a moment, the offices 

 are filled with the perfume indescribable of the open 

 road. 



6 



