I saw them one morning start for the place where the fair was to be held. They came into the garden all dressed and in white caps, and they walked arm-in-arm down a path bordered with Pinks and overhung with Roses, and the sun gleamed on their flowered gowns and on their powdered hair. I could almost hear them say—“La, Mistress Barbara, but I protest it is a fine morning.” There was nothing incongruous in sight, just these walking flowers passing the banks of Roses, pink as their cheeks, and the Pinks white as their powdered hair. I felt at my side for my sword, and put up my hand to my neck to smooth the fall of my lace ruffles, but, alas, nor sword nor lace was there.
In the ordering of paths such as I have written there are many ways, and some are for paths all of grass, and some for tiles, and some for flags of stone, some for gravel, and some for brick laid herring-bone ways. Each has its proper and appointed place, as, for instance, that flags of stone are proper by a balustrade where are also stone jars to hold flowers and stone seats arranged. And brick, which of all the others I most prefer, as it is more warm to look at and helps the garden by its rich colour, is good in intimate small gardens as well as in big, and gives a feeling of cosiness to old-fashioned borders, and is nice near to the house, and is good to set tubs for trees on, or tubs filled with gay flowers. Of grass paths, in that they are soft and inviting, I like them well enough, but they are wet underfoot after rain and dew, and need a deal of care and trimming; but in such cases as small set gardens with queer-shaped beds and low Box borders, I mean bulb gardens, to be afterwards used for carpet bedding or for a show of some one thing, as Begonias, or Zinnias, or Carnations, they are without equal. They should be kept very precious, and well free of weeds, otherwise their beauty is gone and they have a lack-lustre air, very uncomfortable. As for gravel, it is a good thing in place where the ground is low and moist, for it will remain dry better than anything if it is properly rolled and well made. Often it is not properly curved and drained, and Moss and weeds collect at the sides, whereby your garden will seem unkempt and dull. Indeed the garden paths are of supreme importance to the appearance of your garden, as if they be left dirty, or covered with leaves or moss they will spoil all the neat brightness of the flowers, and are apt to look like an unbrushed coat on a man otherwise well dressed. This is especially the case with broad paths and drives. How often one has judged of a gardener by the appearance of his drive! The first glance from the gate up the drive will give you a fair guess at the gardener and his methods, and you can tell at once if he be a man of decent and tidy habits, or a man to leave odd corners dirty and full of weeds. That last man is just such an one as will burnish up his place on the eve of a garden party, and give everything a lick and a promise, and will stand by his greenhouses with an expression on his face of an holy cherub when the visitors are being shown his stove plants. That man will be for ever complaining of overwork and will wear a face as long as a fiddle if he is asked pertinent questions of unweeded paths. “Such a work,” he will say, “should be done by an extra boy. As for me, am I not by day and by night protecting the peas from the birds, and the dahlias from earwigs, and the melons from the ravages of slugs?” And you may know from this that he is the type of man who loses grape scissors, and who leaves bast about, and mislays his trowel, and neglects to give water to your favourite plants, so that they wither and die. No. Look well that you get a man who is fond of keeping himself clean, and he will keep his paths clean, as is the case in a man I know who started a fruit garden in the country. He, it was, who showed me his men working on a Saturday afternoon at cleaning up the paths. And when I stood amazed at this he took me into the shed where the tools were kept, and there I saw spades shining like silver, and forks burnished wonderfully, and everything very orderly. I clapped my hands, and looked round still in wonder, for I marvelled to see such neatness and order in a place that is the shrine of disorder—as tool sheds, potting sheds, and the like, which are a medley of stick, earth, leafmould, old pricking-out boxes, tools, wire, and other miscellaneous objects. And I marvelled still more to see through the open door men at work—on the afternoon devoted to holiday—picking leaves from the paths, and setting the place in order.
I said, “This is well done indeed.”
And he answered, that this was the secret of all good gardening, pride and carefulness, and that now he had shown them the way his men were so proud of their tool-shed that they brought admiring friends to see it of a Sunday afternoon. Then I knew if there was money to be made growing fruit in England (which there is) then this man would make it (which he does).
Now this talk of paths gives one the idea that people do not here make enough of their paths, as the Japanese do, for there they are skilled in small gardens, and especially in landscape gardens on a tiny scale, making little hills and woods, and views, lakes, streams, and rock gardens in a space about the size of the average suburban garden. Then they are very choice of trees, and value the turning colour of Maples, and the droop of Wisteria, and the shape and blossom of Plum and Cherry trees as fine garden ornaments, while we grow our wonderful lawns. Our lawns, indeed, are remarked by all the world, and wherever you see the words “English Gardens” abroad you will know that the people have made a lawn and watered it, and are proud of its fat smooth surface of velvet. But we make the mistake, I think, of growing forest trees on the edge of our lawns and do not enough encourage the wonderful and beautiful varieties of flowering shrubs that there be. Above all we seem to have a passion for dank, black, lustreless Ivy, beloved only of cats, spiders and snails. I have seen many beautiful walls of stone and brick utterly destroyed and defaced by ill-growing Ivy, where the bare walls would give a fine warm background to our flowers.
The great thing in paths is to make them a little secret, leading round trees to a fresh view, and interlacing them in pretty and quaint ways, but we, a conservative people, are ill-disposed to cut new paths except in new gardens, and often leave badly designed paths for lack of a little good courage. But we are learning by degrees, and I think the abominations of gardening are leaving us, such as the monkey-puzzle tree in the centre of a round bed, and the rows of half-moon beds cut by the side of our lawns and filled with Geraniums and Lobelias, and the rustic seat (horror!), and the rustic summer-house made of rough pieces of tree limbs badly nailed together (horror of horrors!). Now we know more of the way to make pergolas, and terraces, and how to build summer-houses, and the curse of the Mid-Victorian gardening is come to an end with the antimacassar, and the wax fruit under a glass case, and the sofa with horsehair bolsters.
Of course, true gardening is the work and interest of a lifetime, like the collecting of objects of Art, and as such inspires much the same eager passion and healthy rivalry. Therefore let the setting of your collection be as perfect as possible, and those paths leading to the choice collections as fine as the velvet on which priceless enamels are laid. Indeed enamel is a happy word, for what do your flowers do but enamel the earth with their sweet colours, and in pattern, choice, and variety, will surpass all things made by man alone.
And here I take my leave of paths, that great subject that should indeed be a book to itself, for if a man sit down to think of paths he begins to follow one himself, and, starting from the cradle, ends at the grave, or, pursuing some path of history, comes into the broad high-road of all learning, or looking up and observing the stars finds a train of thought in following the path of a star. In a garden path, or from it, he may meditate all these things with right and proper circumstance of mind, for he has flowers at his feet full of the meat of good things, rare remembrancers of history, and exquisite things on which to base a philosophy; while, as for the stars, are they not the Daisies of the Fields of Heaven?