XXIV 



SUNDIAL MOTTOES 



DO you recall Cicero's letter to Tiro — 

 his wishing a sundial for his villa in 

 Tusculum? But it was no novelty- 

 there, for the Babylonians had given it to the 

 Greeks nearly half a thousand years before 

 that day when Cicero sat writing to his friend. 

 Perhaps no garden ornament is of greater an- 

 cientry. While we do not need sundials in 

 small gardens, we still love them for their own 

 association's sake, and so we shall keep on 

 placing them there, and we shall, many of us, 

 indulge in the absorbing occupation of finding 

 just the sentiments we wish to have conveyed 

 by inscriptions. To the true garden-lover a 

 garden sundial without its motto is not a sun- 

 dial at aU! 



There is much literature on the subject of 

 sundials to be found and among the volumes 



166 



