INTRODUCTION 



xi 



in their native lands, but we who love our gardens may 

 enjoy many of them about us, not merely in drawings or 

 descriptions, but the living, breathing things themselves. 

 The Geraniums in the cottage window bring us the spicy 

 fragrance of the South African hills ; the Lavender bush of 

 the sunny hills of Provence, where it is at home ; the 

 Eoses in the o-arden brino* near us the breath of the wild 

 Eoses on a thousand hills ; the aromatic pot-herbs of our 

 gardens are a gift of the shore-lands of France and Italy and 

 Greece, The Sweet Bay bush in the farmer's or cottage 

 garden comes with its story from the streams of Greece, 

 where it seeks moisture in a thirsty land along with the wild 

 Olive and the Arbutus. And this Sweet Bay is the Laurel 

 of the poets, of the first and gTeatest of all poet and artist 

 nations of the earth — the Laurel sacred to Apollo, and 

 used in many ways in his worship, as we may see on coins, 

 and in many other things that remain to us of the great 

 civilisations of the past.^ The Myrtle, of less fame, was 

 also a sacred plant beloved for its leaves and blossoms, was, 

 like the Laurel, seen near the temples of the race who 

 built their temples as Lilies are built, whose song is deathless, 

 and the fragments of its art Despair to the artist of our 

 time. And so we see how the frao-rant bushes our o'arclens 

 may entwine for us, apart from their gift of fragrance, living- 

 associations and beautiful thoughts for ever famous in human 

 story. 



It is not only these trees and climbers, loved by all for 

 their odour, we have to think of, but many delicate ones, 



^ ^ What you call advantageous, Solon, is for these men to be 

 crowned in view of all the world, who just before were objects of j^ity 

 from their wounds : and yet it seems they think themselves happy if 

 in return for all their labours they can get a bunch of Laurel." — From 

 the, Greek of Lucian. 



