Through the open windows also, at almost any time of the year, pours the delicious scent of leaf and flower—of Winter Sweet, Violets, or Sweet Peas; of Stocks, or Mignonette; of Wallflowers, or Roses. Just to name a few of the plants whose scent fill the rooms, what glories are thereby called up:—Honeysuckle and Jasmine, Lily of the Valley, Lilac and Narcissus, Carnation, Syringa and Heliotrope, Thyme, Bergamot, and Aloysia! These, and a hundred other fragrances mingled together in infinitely varying combinations, give sensuous joys which even the most jaded can but appreciate. For there is probably no pleasure so democratic as that which is yielded by the fragrance of flowers and leaves. The colour and form of plants require a little attention for their appreciation, but their odour overwhelms our senses whether we attend or no. The variety of perfumes yielded by plants is almost as great as their forms, for blossom of Apple and of Jonquil, leaf of Strawberry, Currant and Sweet Gale gives each an æsthetic pleasure peculiar to itself.
In Elizabethan times, a royal visit seems to have been preceded by a process of sweeting the house, which consisted in filling the rooms with scent of crushed leaves and flowers, scattering also extracts and essences of fragrant plants. This sweeting of the rooms is a continuous process through the open windows of the cottage, and no queenly visit would induce any augmentation of it.
Through the trees, which now have grown to moderate size, may always be seen the most beautiful setting which a beautiful garden can have—the ever restless sea. The contrast is good and effective, and is calculated to prevent any undue development of horticultural vanity.
I thought of Ruskin's statement that "the path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers, but they rise behind her steps, not before them," when one day I sat on a quaint old seat under a pear tree in this little flowerful garden; for it is literally behind his steps, not before them, that all the beauty of my friend's garden has sprung up. Each beautiful leaf and stem and flower are products of his labour and care almost as much as of sun and rain. Yet to a stranger the garden shows no sign of human fingers, human muscles, or human interference.
To many, possibly to most, there is attractiveness in a garden of well-kept, straight-bordered paths, of tidy beds symmetrical beyond reproach, of plants arranged like soldiers under review; but to me such gardens—however pleasant to look at—seem unsuited to repose and impossible to sit and dream in.
This garden is very different. It has no trees cut to the shape of peacocks or wind-mills, no hideous collection of stakes and raffia, which goes by the name of "the carnation bed" (after the manner of Thackeray's "library where the boots are kept"). It is merely a bit of enclosed and humanised natural beauty, a place where one may quietly enjoy delightful flowers and delightful fragrance without the jarring condition of viewing behind the scenes all the time that the performance is being enacted. Every flower in the garden was originally planted by my friend, and has been regularly watched over and tended by him ever since, yet not one but looks as though it had been planted at the creation of the world and had been subject only to the forces of Nature all its life. There is a suggestion of woodland, a suggestion of hedgerow, a suggestion of hillside, yet, of course, the garden differs from them all. It is the absence of bare earth—for scarcely one inch of soil lies undraped by plants—which partly gives the garden that feeling of settled-down-ness. A half-dressed person, a half-papered wall, a half-filled bookcase, a half-finished house—all these things hinder the feeling of repose. So it is that nearly all gardens, looking, as they do, to be in a state of preparation and incompleteness, make restfulness out of the question. But in this garden repose seems the natural emotion, and to sit there beneath a tree and read or chat is always the appropriate thing.
It is not, however, that the earth is all draped which alone causes the feeling of rest. This is due very largely to the fact that the garden is not a "show-garden," was not created for show, but for the satisfaction of its creator.
The "comfortable feel" of the garden is largely assisted also by the nature of the flowers and plants which he has elected to cultivate: Gilly-flowers, Pinks and Purple Columbines, Sweet Carnations, Daffodils and lovèd Lilies. To quote Korumushi, a poet of the race which has the spirit of flower-worship in its heart—
"No man so callous, but he heaves a sigh