At first sight the somewhat expansive imagery of this definition might appear over-vague and unsatisfactory where a very definite question, like a garden of flowers, is concerned. But, come to see it in a lofty light, and at once its truth stands clear. A garden is the proper adjunct of a house, and a house, fully said, is a dream come true, yet still surrounded by the clouds of infinite possibilities. It is always growing, is a true home. Like a flower it expands to every sweet whisper of the wind. Like a flower it shuts at night, or opens to accept the dew. It is something so elusive that only the garlands of love hold it together.
The garden, to the real house, is, like the dwelling, a place of the most subtle fancies. Every flower there, every tree and each blade of grass holds mystery and imagination. The Gods walk there.
The flower beds (accepting the Olympian idea) are not mere collections of flowering herbage, but are volumes of poetry growing in the sun. Take your hedge of Sweet Peas, for example, and tell me what they are—no—tell me who they are. There is a dream there if you like; and while you look at them, and sniff them delicately, is not the fussy world shut off from you by clouds. Sweet Peas are like a bevy of winsome girls all in their everyday frocks, scented by an odour of virginity, something indescribably refined after the manner of the flesh, and something lofty in their removal from the earth after the way of the spirit. I wonder how many people feel this.
Take it more broadly in the true Olympian spirit. Take it that a house and garden is an Olympus to each man and woman who is happy, and you will see that your heaven for all its head in the clouds has its feet upon the earth. Then what do the flowers mean? Lilies with pale faces like a procession of nuns. Roses all queens of regal beauty. Violets to whom the thrushes sing, deny it if you dare. Majestic Peonies. The plants of soft and courtly wisdom, Thyme, Rosemary, Myrtle. Lavender, the House-dame, prim, neat, beloved of bees and butterflies, Quakerishly dressed in grey with a touch of unsectarian colour, yet vaguely an ecclesiastical purple; rather slim, with full skirts, with the suggestion that Cowslips are her bunches of keys, and the Dandelion her clock.
One could go on for ever.
And then the gardener, like those half-immortals who worked for the gods, or some like a god of old, even, with god-like grumbles, and god-like simplicity.
They are a strange race, these gardeners, given to unexpected meals, and sudden appearances.
“Walter!”
And after that, from some fragrant bush, or waving forest of Asparagus, a bronzed man stands erect, as if he had sprung from the bowels of the earth, where he had been contemplating the mysteries of human weakness.
And how amazed they are with us and our foibles and follies. We remonstrate—a question of weeds, perhaps,—and are listened to with incredulous wonder.