A Garden of Peace: A Medley in Quietude

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“How wonderfully peaceful!”

I have analysed their impression that forces them to say that. The mild bustle of the High Street of a country town somehow imposes itself upon one, for the simple reason that you can hear it and observe it. The hustle of London is something quite different. One is not aware of it. You cannot see the wood for the trees. It is all a wild roar. But when our High Street is at its loudest you can easily distinguish one sound from another.

Then the constant menace of motor-cars rushing through the High Street leaves an impression that does not vanish the moment one turns into the passage of the barbican; and upon it comes the sight of the defensive masonry, which is quite terrific for the moment; then comes the looming threat of the Norman gateway which gives promise of no compromise! It is not necessary that one should have a particularly vivid imagination to hear the clash and clang of armoured men riding forth with lances and battleaxes; and when one steps aside out of their way, the rest is silence and the silence is rest.

“How wonderfully peaceful!” every one cries.

And so't is.

You can hear the humming of a bee—the flick of a swallow's wing, the tinkle of the fountain—a delightful sound like the counting out of the threepenny pieces in the Church Vestry after a Special Collection—and the splash of a blackbird in its own particular bath. These are the sounds that cause the silence to startle you. “Darkness visible,” is Milton's phrase. But to make an adaptation of it is not enough to express what one feels on entering a walled garden from a street even of a country town. There is an outbreak of silence the moment the door is closed, and it is in a hushed tone that one says, when one is able to speak,—

“How wonderfully peaceful!”

I think that a garden is not a garden unless it is walled. Perhaps a high hedge of yew or box conveys the same impression as a built-up wall; but I am not quite certain on this point. The impression has remained with us since the days when an Englishman's home was his castle and an Englishman's castle his home. What every one sought was security, and a consciousness of security only came when one was within walls. In going through a country of wild animals one has a kindred feeling when the fire is lighted at nightfall. Another transmitted instinct is that which forces one to look backward on a road when the sound of steps tells one that one is being followed. The earliest English gardens of which any record remains were walled. In the illustrations to the Romaunt of the Rose, we see this; and possibly the maze became a feature of the garden in order to increase the sense of security from the knife of an enemy whose slaughter had been overlooked by the mediaeval horticultural enthusiast, who sought for peace and quiet on Prussian principles.

I think it was the appearance of the walls that forced me to buy my estate of a superficial acre. Certainly until I saw them I had no idea of such a purchase. If any one had told me on that morning when I strolled up the High Street of Yardley Parra while the battery of my car was being re-charged after the manner of those pre-magneto times, that I should take such a step I would have laughed. But it was a day of August sunshine and there was an auction of furniture going on in the house. This fact gave me entree to the “old-world garden” of the agent's advertisement, and when I saw the range of walls ablaze with many-coloured snapdragons above the double row of hollyhocks in the border at their foot, I “found peace,” as the old Revivalists used to phrase the sentiment, only their assurance was of a title to a mansion in the skies, while I was less ambitious. I sought peace and ensued it, purchasing the freehold, and I have been ensuing it ever since.