THE CHARM OF GARDENS 



what a small space this requires ? Those who might be 

 free and yet choose to live in towns might have it all 

 for the price of the rent of the ground their kitchen 

 covers. 



There are those aching spirits to whom no land is 

 home, whose feet go wandering over the world ; gipsy- 

 spirits searching one must suppose for peace of mind 

 in constant new sights. For them the well-ordered 

 garden with its high walls, its neat lawn, its fair carriage- 

 drive, is but a dull prison-house, and even if in the course 

 of their wanderings they stray into such a place their 

 talk is all of other lands ; of scarlet twisted flowers in 

 Cashmere ; of fields of Arum Lilies near Table Mountain ; 

 of the sad-grey Olives and the gorgeous Orange groves 

 of Spain; the Poppy fields of China, or the brightly 

 painted Tulips growing orderly in Holland. We with 

 our ancestral rookery near by, our talk of last year's 

 nests, or overweening pride in the soft snows of Mrs. 

 Simpkin's Pinks, seem to these folk like prisoners, who 

 having tamed a mouse proclaim it chief of all the 

 animal world. But ask of the Garden of England and 

 the flowers it affords and see their eyes take on a far- 

 away look as the road calls to them, and hear them at 

 their own lore of roadside flowers, praising and loving 

 Traveller's Joy, the gilt array of Buttercups, the dusty 

 pink of Ragged Robin, and the like sweet joys the vaga- 

 bond holds dear. This one can whistle like a blackbird ; 

 that one has boiled the roots of Dandelions (Dent de Lion, 

 a charming name) and has been cured by their juices. 

 He knows that if he sees the delicate parachutes of 

 Dandelion, Coltsfoot, or of Thistle-fly when there is not 

 a breath of wind, then there will be rain. They read 

 the skies, hear voices in the wind, take courses from the 

 stars, and know the time of day from flowers. These 

 men, having none of the spirit that inspires your gar- 



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