i6o OLD-FASHIONED GARDENING 



need — and, literally, it means something which the 

 users of it never actually intend. 



We have of course a certainty, when the words fall 

 on our ears, of generally pleasant attributes in the 

 thing to which we hear them applied. Hence they are 

 the cue for a rapturous response, either oral or facial — 

 lest we seem unappreciative — followed usually by 

 amiable generalities calculated to preserve the mental 

 fog. Someone says, "Such a nice old-fashioned 

 house! All funny little windows"; or "Such a fine 

 old-fashioned garden ! All boxwood" ; and we are all 

 immediately charged with a pleasant complacence, in 

 which little windows and boxwood drift about, un- 

 attached to anything except an attenuated mental con- 

 cept that is without form and void. 



If this sort of thing is not to go on indefinitely, we 

 must reduce the term "old-fashioned" to something 

 akin to certainty. The literal meaning is of course 

 a fashion that is "old, obsolete or antiquated" — 

 with absolute disregard of whether it was charming 

 or ugly; but by some curious philological twist, an 

 associated meaning has grown up around this, which 

 almost hides it; a meaning that insists upon beauty 

 as a primary property, and that resents the implied 

 reproach of either "obsolete" or "antiquated." Of 

 course no house or garden or anything else that was 

 described as obsolete in fashion would win a word 



