IN ELYSIAN FIELDS 



BY a strange oversight the garden books have slighted 

 the art of making gardens for children. Of course a 

 garden is a fairyland at any time, a wilderness of pure 

 delight, and the most barren can be decked with fancy 

 until it blooms like the Vale of Cashmere. We who have 

 always loved gardens from our earliest days, and remem- 

 ber those of the first years of childhood, know how great 

 the contrast is between the flowery land of our dreams and 

 the fenced inclosure that we return to visit after a score of 

 years and are told that it has not changed at all. Where 

 is the glamour and whither has flown the vision -fair 1 ? 



Blessed childhood, blessed with rosy hopes and faith 

 that all before and about us is what we wish it to be! 

 The rosebush with the single rose is a bower, the strug- 

 gling bed of posies the source of every perfume and 

 delight in flower land. They are ours for the day or the 

 summer, and what can compare beside them ! 



Next to being born with a dreaming fancy is the rare 



gift of an imaginative friend to take the child by the 



hand and to make fairy rings grow in the grass and elves 



live in every flowery cup. Such a friend throws wide the 



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