ai8 
Old Time Gardens 
beds, and the flowers are not so large or brilliant as 
our modern favorites ; but, quiet as they are, they 
are said to excel the blossoms of the same plants of 
Shakespeare’s own day, which we learn from the old 
herbalists were smaller and less varied in color and 
of simpler tints than those of their descendants. 
At the first glance this Shakespeare Border shines 
chiefly in the light of the imagination, as stirred by 
the poet’s noble words ; but do not dwell on this 
border as a whole, as something only to be looked 
at ; read the pages of this garden, dwell on each 
leafy sentence, and you are entranced with its beau- 
tiful significance. It was not gathered with so much 
thought, and each plant and seed set out and watched 
and reared like a delicate child, to become a show 
place ; it appeals for a more intimate regard ; and 
we find that its detail makes its charm. 
Such a garden as this appeals warmly to any- 
one who is sensitive to the imaginative element of 
flower beauty. Many garden makers forget that a 
flower bed is a group of living beings — perhaps of 
sentient beings — as well as a mass of beautiful color. 
Modern gardens tend far too much toward the dis- 
play of the united effect of growing plants, to a 
striving for universal brilliancy, rather than atten- 
tion to and love for separate flowers. There was 
refreshment of spirit as well as of the senses in the 
old-time garden of flowers, such as these planted in 
this Shakespeare Border, and it stirred the heart of 
the poet as could no modern flower gardens. 
The scattering inflorescence and the tiny size of 
the blossoms give to this Shakespeare Border an 
