112 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
[ August 6,18&I 
WANDERINGS. 
Among the pleasant remembrances of our visit to Antwerp was a 
call from one of its chief citizens, Mr. Everaerts, who gave such a strong, 
kind, take-no-denial sort of invitation to his beautiful home that it was 
irresistible. ‘ It was not kind of ycu when in Belgium before not to 
come and stay with us, and you must come now and remain a very long 
time. Our pleasure will be very great to send the carriage at your con¬ 
venience and drive you to our residence at Vieux Dieu. It will be a 
great treat to us to have you with u°, as we like the English, and 
especially those of them who love gardens as we do. Our garden is 
our great delight, our constant home pleasure, and is made the greater 
to us when it is shared by our friends.” That was the spirit of the 
invitation, and so far as can be remembered the form, to the country 
on this ? Does it not show what Shakespeare knew, and imnortalised 
the truth in words that cannot die, 
“ One touch of nature makes the whole world kin ?” 
Here were workers in the hive of horticulture for subsistence on 
the one hand, and for mind-refreshing, health-giving, heart-loving 
exercise on the other—people of three nationalities but with common 
sympathies, and therefore common friends. It shows what gardening 
does for those who love it truly—upites all, of whatever rank, in the 
brotherhood of humanity, and makes happier through the union rich 
and poor alike. 
“ Very fine preachiDg,” perhaps some of my readers may say, “ but 
this does not happen in England.” But it does. When was our great 
flor'st, the Rev. F. D. Horner, happier than in the plain little cottage of 
Fig. 17.—THE ROCKERY IN MR. EVERAERTS’ GARDEN. 
home—the garden heme it may be appropriately termed—of one of 
the truest garden lovers that can be found in Europe. 
Mr. Everaerts is a great interr ational banker and financier, also an 
ex-sens tor, and one of tbe most trusted and esteemed of the citizens of 
Antwerp ; and Mrs. Eveiaerts is like her husband in her love for every¬ 
thing that grows, in her transparent kindness, her pleasing affability, 
and the frank and homelike welcome she gives to those who, as she says, 
are so kind as to visit them. I rather think that the sharer of my fate 
for more than thirty years—most of them years of labour not of luxury, 
but all of them years on which we can look back with as much satis¬ 
faction as can the most wealthy on their past career—yes, I almost think 
that, to quote the old English song, “ My dear w.fe Joan ” was really a 
little nervous over this visit to those who were strangers to her but not 
to me, and I well knew how soon she would be happy and at home with 
them. And so it was. She could not and did not feel a stranger a 
moment after her genuine welcome by Mrs. Everaerts, but quickly 
appeared as settled as if “ the place was all her own.” But why dwell 
the working cutler florist’s—the Simonite's—on that veritable “ Rough 
Bank” at Sheffield? Not often probably except when he had “Ben ” as his 
drawing-room guest at home. When is Mr. S. Barlow, J.P., more contented 
than when his flower-loving “ mill hands” share with him the pleasures 
that his Tulips and Carnations afford, and discuss their points in the 
native vernacular? It is said that this “touch of nature,” this mutual 
sympathy that flowers create, is so active with him that he sends his 
carriage for an aged workman who can no longer walk to see “ th’ owd 
gaffer ” (old master), and the flowers that make them friends. Surely 
the world is not made worse for these pleasant associations, but better, 
as brought about by the good influences that are born in the garden,, 
therefore let them be nurtured. Tired of all this are you ? Well, we 
will change the matter ; but it is all the same appropriate to the text_ 
“Wanderings,” mental wanderings ; and now those of our young men 
who aspire to write a few pages for the Journal, and know not what to 
say that will be readable, may take a lesson from this example in 
choosing a text—short yet expansive, and around which the thoughts 
