GARDEN DESIGN— COMPARATIVE, HISTORICAL, AND ETHICAL. 377 



was of their imperishable youth. The crumbling touch of age may add 

 a charm, but is wholly adventitious and not intrinsic." The severe line 

 of the column and the firm strength of the curves have nothing to do 

 with the beauty sentiment, they but pronounce the sentiment of unfailing 

 youthfulness. 



This ideal of perpetual youthfulness is not that view of life that the 

 garden ministers to, although I do not think that the suspicion of it is 

 altogether absent therefrom ; change and decay, rejuvenation through 

 death is the rule that reigns in Nature, she being most lavish in the 

 waning autumn of fruitfulness and most resplendent in her decay. Many 

 of my readers will respond when I say that a garden and the tending of 

 flowers is equally, or perhaps more, adapted to the aged than to the 

 restless youth who bounds 



From bill to hill in discontent, 

 Content when most nneasy. 



There is no pleasure so adapted to those who cannot enter into the 

 stress of active life as the tending of flowers, since it supplies that degree 

 of exercise as necessary for the preservation of health both of mind and 

 body, as food. The delicacy of the form of flowers and their mute appeal 

 to gentleness, innocence, and sympathy, along with their frailty, commend 

 them to the finer fervour of the female mind also, but the ancient Greek 

 was nothing if he was not of the prominent heroic calibre. War, sport, 

 physical culture, rearing noble architecture, the merit of which even in its 

 ruin is its youthfulness, as Mr. Ormerod says, were extolled by them. 



I do not deny for a moment that in the philosophy of the garden there 

 is enshrined such profound truths that the deepest thinking man of 

 science need not go beyond its confines, but it is not strictly speaking his 

 province, I think the unguided idiot's mind that calls forth sympathy is 

 more welcome here almost than he. Over the portal of my ideal garden- 

 my refuge from the world's distracting agitations and ambitions — I would 

 inscribe: "Whoso seeks self-glory let him not enter here." If you are 

 determinately set in the way of these ancient Greeks, and for the sake of 

 one monstrosity will sap the strength of ten, very well then emblazon 

 your name across the show table, and in the horticultural magazines or 

 the local newspaper if you like. If the "fatuous letch" for rarities is 

 yours, and you must at all costs lend your name to the already bewildering 

 labels attached to the . innocent roses, dahlias, rhododendrons, fruits, and 

 shrubs instead of assisting us poor selectors by a simple appellation which 

 will be at least an indication of their differentiation, such as' ' Crimson 

 Blush,' ' Scarlet Tipped,' or ' Purple Blot,' then I must leave you to go the 

 way of the decline of this wonder-producing nation ; for perhaps the same 

 rose that greets you to-day as ' Baron Rudigore,' a little later we meet 

 re-named as ' Squire Stopgap.' However, enough of this ; suffice it to 

 say that the concentration upon the conceit of individual growth does not 

 tend to the cluster of wholesome relationships each to each of plant and 

 flower and the cheerful homely fellowship and generosity which goes to 

 make up the ideal garden. 



I quote from Homer to show how true at all costs the Greeks were to 

 their ideal of perpetual freshness, which we simulate by our forcing houses ; 



