272 THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



two woods, where the birds in warm weather sing all day long ; 

 and then, right, left, on all sides, woods, woods, everywhere 

 woods. Letter to M. de Bayne, Christmas Day, 1832. 



One can actually see the progress of the green ; it has made a 

 start from the garden to the shrubberies, it is getting the upper 

 hand all along the mere ; it leaps, one may say, from tree to tree, 

 from thicket to thicket, in the fields and on the hill-sides ; and I 

 can see it already arrived at the forest hedge and beginning to 

 spread itself over the broad back of the forest. Letters (translated 

 by Matthew Arnold.} 



THEOPHILE O OME time ago we dreamed to plan a garden wherein Nature 



should have ful1 libert y- Never should the bill-hook cut 

 one branch in it, nor shears trim a hedge or a border. The twigs 

 would have been quite free to interlace themselves according to 

 their own fancy : the plants, to creep and climb ; the mosses, to 

 cover with their patches the trunks of trees ; the lichens, to make 

 the statues white with their grey bands ; the brambles, to bar the 

 walks and arrest you with their thorns ; the wild poppy, to raise 

 its red spark near the untrained rose ; the ivy, to shoot its roving 

 wreaths, and hang over the balustrades of terraces. Full license 

 would have been granted to the nettle, the thistle, the celandine, 

 the cleavers, which cling to you like a burr ; to the burdock, the 

 nightshade, the quitch to all the gipsy horde of undisciplined 

 plants to grow, multiply, invade, obliterate every trace of cultiva- 

 tion, and to turn the flower-garden into a miniature forest. 



This forsaken paradise, we should, besides, have liked to see 

 surrounded with walls green with moss, clothed with mural plants, 

 and crowned with stocks, iris, gilliflowers, and seagreens, in place 

 of the broken glass, wherewith it is usual to deter the intruding 

 urchins ; and over the rain-washed gate, bare of paint, and having 

 no trace of that green colour beloved by Rousseau, we would 

 have written this inscription in black letters, stone-like in shape, 

 and threatening of aspect : { Gardeners are prohibited from 

 entering here.' Nature at Home. 



