THE JOYOUS ART OF GARDENING 

 By Frances Duncan 



HERE be delights," says an ancient writer, "that will 

 fetch the day about from sun to sun and rock the tedious 

 year as in a delightful dream." Thus, and very much 

 after this manner, the charming old prose-poet, amiably 

 garden-mad, continues page after page, to describe the " 1000 

 delights" to be found in the "flowery orchard" of his century — 

 describes them with an abandon of happiness that suggests the 

 rapture of St. Bernard when hymning the New Jerusalem. 



Miss Duncan says: " In fact, barring the equally ancient and 

 alluring pastime of going a-fishing, no hobby has a stronger grip 

 on its devotees than gardening. At four o'clock of a summer 

 morning Celia Thaxter could be found at work in her radiant little 

 island plot, a sister in spirit to old Chaucer when on his knees in 

 the grass at dawn to watch a daisy open. And these were not 

 exceptional, not extraordinary cases, of devotion; they were 

 merely typical exponents of the true gardener's passion." 



Nor is this tense enthusiasm fleeting. Not in the least 1 It 

 is no more transient than the bibliomaniac's passion, no more 

 evanescent than the collector's zeal. What Miss Duncan says 



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