THE CHARM OF GARDENS 



Here we have Nature triumphant, the Earth with her 

 children asleep in her lap. But a monstrosity has crept 

 into our graveyards — God's Gardens — and in place of 

 flowers with their joy, their symbolical message of resur- 

 rection, one sees ghastly things of bead work and of wax, 

 enclosed in hideous glass cases with a mourning card in 

 the centre of them. This is not seemly nor decent in a 

 place where the Earth reclaims her children, where no- 

 thing ugly should be. It is within the reach of everyone 

 to buy fresh flowers and to renew those flowers from 

 time to time, and they should be left, if they are placed 

 there, to die. Away then with glass jam-jars filled with 

 water, with bead wreaths, and all ill-taste and hideous 

 distortion of grief, and let us have our offerings made as 

 if to the living, for our dead live in our hearts, nor torture 

 them with horrid and distressing objects on their graves. 

 I would have every churchyard a garden kept by the 

 pence of those who have laid their dead there to rest ; 

 and I would have flowers and shrubs planted and paths 

 made, and seats placed, so that all should be kept fair and 

 bright. 



In Switzerland, where I was once, I saw the most 

 delightful graveyard I have ever seen. The church 

 stood on a bluff overlooking a river, a swift running noisy 

 river that sang songs of the mountains and of the big 

 fields and of the bustling towns, a dashing river alive 

 with music, loving the sound of its own voice. Above 

 was this church and its yard, and a little below, the vil- 

 lage. The church was low-built and old, with a wooder 

 tower on which a cock stood guard ; and it was white- 

 washed, and toned by sun and rain, and a clock in the 

 tower marked the passage of time, solemnly, " tick-tock ; 

 tick-tock." Along the south wall outside the church was 

 a bench, and a Wisteria over the bench, and a little jut- 

 ting roof over the Wisteria. This bench, time-worn as all 



236 



