CHAPTER XV 



i MY GARDEN OF DREAMS 



I would have plants full of fair blossom from the entrance 

 to the exit of the garden, that there might come to the de- 

 parting friend a " Vale " all full of fragrant breath. 



FIRST of all, in the making of a garden I would have 

 grass-grown ways between rose-embowered aisles, where 

 Peace might close her wings and rest, where the tender 

 sadness of half-remembered thoughts might linger on 

 long-loved, old-world flowers, and ghosts of welcome 

 memory haunt the mellowed gloom. Odorous blossom 

 should fringe even the narrowest way, filling the air 

 with subtle life, with fragrant echoes from a dimmed 

 and distant past. Unless a garden is a place conjuring 

 up dreams that soothe with a deep and tender solace, 

 where peace and real contentment chase dull care away, 

 it fails entirely of its purpose. Garish colouring and vivid 

 contrasts tend to irritation of the mind, and are to be 

 avoided. The garden that is of the world worldly, not 

 losing its prosaicness in romance as leaves are smothered 

 in blossom, is never a real home of flowers. 



There are gardens and gardens ; some are mere assem- 

 blages of plants grown specially for the positions they fill, 



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