376 
Old Time Gardens 
Court, Haverford, Pennsylvania. Sometimes the 
pillars of old balustrades, old fence posts, and 
even parts of old tombs and monuments, have 
been used as pedestals for sun-dials. How pleas- 
antly Sylvana in her Letters to an Unknown Friend , 
tells us and shows to us her cheerful sun-dial 
mounted on the four corners of an old tomb- 
stone with this fine motto cut into the upper step, 
Lux et umbra vicissim sed semper amor. I mean 
to search the stone-cutters’ waste heap this summer 
and see whether I cannot rob the grave to mark the 
hours of my life. Charles Dickens had at Gadshill 
a sun-dial set on one of the pillars of the balustrade 
of Old Rochester Bridge. From Italy and Greece 
marble pillars have been sent from ancient ruins to 
be set up as dial pedestals. 
If possible, the pedestal as well as the dial-face of 
a handsome sun-dial should have some significance 
through association, suggestion, or history. At 
Ophir Farm, White Plains, New York, the country- 
seat of Hon. Whitelaw Reid, may be seen a sun-dial 
full of exquisite significance. It is shown on page 
375. The signs of the Zodiac in finely designed 
bronze are set on the symmetrical marble pedestal, 
and seem wonderfully harmonious and appropriate. 
This sun-dial is a literal exemplification of the words 
of Emerson : — 
“A calendar 
Exact to days, exact to hours. 
Counted on the spacious dial 
Yon broidered Zodiac girds.’ ’ 
