16 GARDEN-CRAFT. 



of his plants, and is familiar with all their humours ; 

 like a good host, he has his eye on all his company. 

 He has fine schemes for the future of the place. 

 The very success of the garden reflects upon its 

 master, and advertises the perfect understanding that 

 exists between the artist and his materials. The 

 sense of ownership and responsibility brings him 

 satisfaction, of a cheaper sort. His the hand that 

 holds the wand to the garden's magic ; his the 

 initiating thought, the stamp of taste, the style that 

 gives it circumstance. Let but his hand be with- 

 drawn a space, and, at this signal, the gipsy horde 

 of weeds and briars that even now peer over the 

 fence, and cast clandestine seeds abroad with every 

 favouring gust of wind would at once take leave to 

 pitch their tents within the garden's zone, would 

 strip the place of art-conventions, and hurry it back 

 to its primal state of unkempt wildness. 



Someone has observed that when wonder is 

 excited, and the sense of beauty gratified, there is 

 instant recreation, and a stimulus that lifts one out 

 of life's ordinary routine. This marks the function 

 of a garden in a world where, but for its presence, 

 the commonplace might preponderate ; 'tis man's 

 recreation-ground, children's fairyland, bird's or- 

 chestra, butterfly's banquet. Verse and romance 

 have done well, then, to link it with pretty thoughts 

 and soft musings, with summer reveries and moon- 

 light ecstasies, with love's occasion, and youth's 

 yearning. No fitter place could well be found than 

 this for the softer transactions of life that awaken 



