IN THE BOTANIC GARDEN, OXFORD.
“The scared leaves only flew the faster for all this, and a giddy chase it was; for they got into unfrequented places, where there was no outlet, and where their pursuer kept them eddying round and round at his pleasure; and they crept under the eaves of houses, and clung tightly to the sides of hayricks like bats; and tore in at open chamber windows, and cowered close to hedges; and, in short, went anywhere for safety. But the oddest feat they achieved was, to take advantage of the sudden opening of Mr. Pecksniff’s front door, to dash wildly down his passage, with the wind following close upon them, and finding the back door open, incontinently blew out the lighted candle held by Miss Pecksniff, and slammed the front door against Mr. Pecksniff, who was at that moment entering, with such violence, that in the twinkling of an eye, he lay on his back at the bottom of the steps. Being by this time weary of such trifling performances, the boisterous rover hurried away rejoicing, roaring over moor and meadow, hill and flat, until it got out to sea, where it met with other winds similarly disposed, and made a night of it.”
Is not this wonderful and immortal passage as much a part of the Charm of Gardens as the most delectable poetry on the perfumed air of a summer night?
Often, when the logs are crackling on the hearth, one hears those hunted leaves come banging on the window panes, those gaunt trees tossing in the wind. When all the garden lies cold and bare and stripped of green, the trees roar out an answer to the wind, an hundred garden voices swell the storm, and you sit happy by your fireside and dream new colours for the garden beds; and where a white frost sparkles on the earth, and trees lift up bare fingers to the sky, you see deep wealth of green, and jewelled borders brim full of spring flowers, and there a set of bulbs you have nursed, come out sweet in green sheathes, and here a tree, now naked, clothed in young green.
That for the night. For the morning, trailing clouds of mist over the trees like fairy shawls alive with dew-diamonds, each dew-drop reflecting its tiny world. The trees, the world, the garden still asleep, or half asleep, until the sun throws off the counterpane of clouds and springs into the skies.
It is at that time, before the sun is awake, the trees look strange as sleeping things look strange, with a counterfeit of death, so still are they. And in the Spring when the orchard is a pale ghost before the sun is up, a man would swear it had been covered up at night in silver smoke, or gossamer, or fairy silk that the sun tears into weeping shreds that drip and drip and give the grass a bath.
But of the effect of trees as a spiritual support no man is at variance with another. That they give courage, and help and hope, that the green sight of them is good as being reminder that Heaven is kind, and that the Winter is not always, no man doubts but, perhaps, fears to voice, feeling his neighbour will call out at him for a worshipper of Pan and of strange gods. But to the garden dweller, or to him who must perforce make his garden of one tree in a dusty court, and of one glass of flowers on his desk, these things have voices, and they are kindly voices, saying, “Despair not,” and “Regard me how I grow upright through the seasons,” and also “Give shade and shelter to all things and men equally as I do, without distinction or difference, and if the grass gives a couch, fair and embroidered with flowers, so do I give a roof of infinite variety, and a shade from the sun, and a shelter from the wind.” And again, “If a man know a tree to love it he will understand much of men, and of birds, and beasts and of all living things. And of greater things too, for in the branches is other fruit than the fruit of the tree. Just as the rainbow is set in the sky for a promise, so is fruit in a tree set there; and the leaves show how orderly is the Great Plan; and the branches show the strength of slender things, and of little things, so that a man may know how Heaven has its roots in earth, and its crest in the clouds. And a man who holds to earth with one hand, and reaches at the stars with the other, in that span he encompasses all that may be known if he but see it. But men are blind, and do not see the sky but as sky, and do not see the stars but as balls of fire, or the green grass but as a carpet, or the flowers but as a combination of chemical accidents. But over all, and through all, and in all is God, Who still speaks with Adam in the Garden.”
These things are to be learnt of trees both great and small, withered and young, sapling and Oak of centuries. And they are to be learnt also in the dust on a butterfly’s wing; or of a blade of grass; or of a hemp seed. But men are deaf, and hear no voice but the voice of water in a rushing stream; and no sound but the sound of leaves stirring when the wind rests in a tree; and no voice speaking in a blaze of flowers who sing praises night and day in scented voices.
A tree is not dumb, and the Creeping Briar is not dumb, and the Rose has a voice like the voice of a woman rejoicing that she is fair. But men are dumb, for though their hearts speak, all tongues are not touched with fire.