From ‘‘Our GarDEns’’— 
“What is a garden for?’ ... I repeated my question to a middle-aged 
nymph, who wore a feathered hat of noble proportions over a loose green 
tunic with a silver belt, and she replied with a rapturous disdain of the 
zgnorance which presumed to ask—What is a garden for? For the soul, sir, 
for the soul of the poet! For visions of the invisible, for grasping the intan- 
gible, for hearing the inaudible, for exaltations (she raised her hands and 
stood tiptoe, like jocund day upon the misty mountain top, as though she 
would soar into space) above the miserable dullness of common life into the 
Splendid regions of imagination and romance. I ventured to suggest that 
she would have to do a large amount of soaring before she met with any- 
thing more beautiful than the flowers, or sweeter than the nightingale's 
note, but the flighty one still wished to fly... . 
The unkindest cut of all, so common that it makes one callous, comes 
from those visitors who would be so delighted to see our garden! and they 
come and see, and forget to be delighted... .I heard a lady speaking to her 
companion of ‘the most perfect gem she had ever seen,’ and when suppos- 
ing that reference was made to some exquisite novelty in plants, I enquired 
the name and habitation, I was informed that the subject under discussion 
was ‘Isabel's new baby.” —Dean Hote, Lonpon, 1899 
