CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
Again may I beg leave to express the opinion that there is no need for any one to depend upon conventional ornaments with a view to make the garden interesting as well as ornamental. With a little imagination, one can introduce quite a number of details that are absolutely unique. There is nothing that looks better than an arch made out of an old stone doorway. It may be surmounted by a properly supported shield carved with a crest or a monogram. A rose pillar of stone has a charming appearance at the end of a vista. The most effective I have seen were made of artificial stone, and they cost very little. Many of the finest garden figures of the eighteenth century were made of this kind of cement, only inferior in many respects to the modern “artificial stone.” It is unnecessary to say that any material that resists frost will survive that comparatively soft stone work which goes from bad to worse year by year in the open.
But I do not think that, while great freedom and independence should be shown in the introduction of ornamental work, one should ever go so far as to construct in cold blood a ruin of any sort, nor is there any need, I think, to try to make a new piece look antique.
But I have actually known of a figure being deprived of one of its arms in order to increase its resemblance to the Venus of the island of Milos! Such mutilation is unwarrantable. I have known of Doctors of Medicine taking pains to make their heads bald, in compliance with the decrepit notion that knowledge was inseparable from a venerable age. There may be an excuse for such a proceeding, though to my mind this posturing lacks only two letters to be imposturing; but no excuse can be found for breaking the corner off a piece of moulding or for treating a stone figure with chemicals in order to suggest antiquity. Such dealers as possess a clientele worth maintaining, know that a thing “in mint condition,” as they describe it, is worth more than a similar thing that is deficient in any way. That old story about the artificial worm-eating will not be credited by any one who is aware of the fact that a piece of woodwork showing signs of the ravages of the wood moth is practically worthless. There would be some sense in a story of a man coming to a dealer with a composition to prevent worm-holes, as they are called, being recognised. Ten thousand pounds would not be too much to pay for a discovery that would prevent woodwork from being devoured by this abominable thing. Surely some of the Pasteur professors should be equal to the task of producing a serum by which living timber might be inoculated so as to make it immune to such attacks, or liable only to the disease in a mild form.
But there are dealers in antiques whose dealings are as doubtful as their Pentateuch (according to Bishop Colenso's researches). Heywood tells me that he came across such an one in a popular seaside town which became a modern Hebrew City of Refuge, mentioned in one of the Mosaic books, during the air raids. This person had for sale a Highland claidh-earnh-mdr—that is, I can assure you, the proper way to spell claymore—which he affirmed had once belonged to the Young Pretender. There it was, with his initials “Y. P.,” damascened upon the blade, to show that there could be no doubt about it.
And Friswell remembered hearing of another enterprising trader in antiquities who had bought from a poor old captain of an American whaler a sailor's jack-knife—Thackeray called the weapon a snickersnee—which bore on the handle in plain letters the name “Jonah,” very creditably carved. Everybody knows that whales live to a very great age; and it has never been suggested that there was at any time a clearing-house for whales.
I repeat that there is no need for garden ornaments to be ancient; but if one must have such things, one should have no difficulty in finding them, even without spending enormous sums to acquire them. But say that one has set one's heart upon having a stone bench, which always furnishes a garden, no matter what its character may be. Well, I have bought a big stone slab—it had once been a step—for five shillings. I kept it until I chanced to see a damaged Portland truss that had supported a heavy joist in some building. This I had sawn into two—there was a well-cut scroll on each side—and by placing these bits in position and laying my slab upon them, I concocted a very imposing garden bench for thirteen shillings. If I had bought the same already made up in the ordinary course of business, it would have cost me at least £5. If I had seen the thing in a mason's yard, I would have bought it at this price.
Again, I came upon an old capital of a pillar that had once been in an Early Norman church—it was in the backyard of a man from whom I was buying bulbs. I told the man that I would like it, and he said he thought half a crown was about its value. I did not try to beat him down—one never gets a bargain by beating a tradesman down—and I set to work rummaging through his premises. In ten minutes I had discovered a second capital; and the good fellow said I might have this one as I had found it. I thought it better, however, to make the transaction a business one, so I paid my second half-crown for it. But two years had passed before I found two stone shafts with an aged look, and on these I placed my Norman relics. They look very well in the embrace of a Hiawatha rose against a background of old wall. These are but a few of the “made-ups” which furnish my House Garden, not one of which I acquired in what some people would term the legitimate way.