A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 



The time is the 23d of March. A robin has 

 come, a song-sparrow has been heard; we wan- 

 der to the south boundary of our two acres in 

 search of snowdrops. And here, on a little slope 

 where the garland thorn and the red cedar grow 

 to a height of some twelve feet, is a little but 

 delicious spectacle of spring snowdrops, white bells 

 ringing in the spring wind, and down the tiny 

 hillside the delicate lavender. Crocus Tomma- 

 sinianus, running here and there among the snow- 

 drops. How I have longed to see the flora of 

 the Alpine meadows, to see the crocus fields of 

 the Alpine slopes! Flemwell's lovely pictures, 

 as well as many pens besides his, have given me 

 this desire. Yet in that absurdly wild imagina- 

 tion which I fear is mine I see a hint of these 

 longed-for sights as I gaze now upon my white 

 and palest violet flowers of March. Did not these 

 snowdrops a week ago raise their buds and green 

 leaves through a sheet of ice ? Is not the effect of 

 little tree and little flower so scaled as to suggest 

 a much larger and more important picture ? The 

 least animate object coming into it disturbs that 

 scale, of course, just as they say a robin perch- 

 ing upon the miniature Matterhorn ruins so tragi- 

 cally the effect of the renowned rock-garden of 



74 



