[7] "My Epitaph."
"Below lies one whose name was traced in sand—
He died, not knowing what it was to live;
Died while the first sweet consciousness of manhood
And maiden thought electrified his soul:
Faint beatings in the calyx of the rose.
Bewildered reader, pass without a sigh
In a proud sorrow! There is life with God,
In other Kingdom of a sweeter air;
In Eden every flower is blown. Amen."
David Gray ("A Poet's Sketch-book," R. Buchanan, p. 81.)
[8] "This strange combination of autumn and spring tints is a very usual sight in Japan.... It is worth noting that in Japan a tree is considered chiefly for its form and tint, not for use.... I heard the cherry-trees were now budding, so I hurried up to take advantage of them, and found them more beautiful than I had ever imagined. There are at least fifty varieties, from delicately tinted white and pink to the richest rose, almost crimson blossom."—Alfred East's "Trip to Japan," Universal Review, March, 1890.
[9] "If you look into our gardens annexed to our houses" (says William Harrison in Holinshed's "Chronicles") "how wonderful is their beauty increased, not only with flowers, which Columella calleth Terrena Sydera, saying 'Pingit et in varias terrestria, sydera flores,' and variety of curious and costly workmanship, but also with rare and medicinable herbs.... How Art also helpeth Nature in the daily colouring, doubling and enlarging the proportions of our flowers it is incredible to report, for so curious and cunning are our gardeners now in these days that they presume to do, in a manner, what they list with Nature, and moderate her course in things as if they were her superiors. It is a world also to see how many strange herbs, plants, and annual fruits are daily brought unto us from the Indies, Americans, Taprobane, Canary Isles, and all parts of the world, the which, albeit that his respect of the constitutions of our bodies, they do not grow for us (because God hath bestowed sufficient commodities upon every country for her own necessity) yet for delectation's sake unto the eye, and their odoriferous savours unto the nose, they are to be cherished, and God also glorified in them, because they are His good gifts, and created to do man help and service. There is not almost one nobleman, gentleman, or merchant that hath not great store of these flowers, which now also begin to wax so well acquainted with our evils that we may almost account of them as parcel of our own commodities."—(From "Elizabethan England," pp. 26-7.)
[10] Here is Emerson writing to Carlyle of his "new plaything"—a piece of woodland of forty acres on the border of Walden Pond. "In these May mornings, when maples, poplars, walnut, and pine are in their spring glory, I go thither every afternoon and cut with my hatchet an Indian path thro' the thicket, all along the bold shore, and open the finest pictures." (John Morley's Essays, "Emerson," p. 304.) But, as Mr Morley points out, he finds the work too fascinating, eating up days and weeks; "nay, a brave scholar should shun it like gambling, and take refuge in cities and hotels from these pernicious enchantments."
[11] "I like your Essays," said Henry the Third to Montaigne. "Then, sire, you will like me. I am my Essays."
[12] Time does much for a garden. There is a story of an American plutocrat's visit to Oxford. On his tour of the Colleges nothing struck him so much as the velvety turf of some of the quadrangles. He asked for the gardener, and made minute enquiries as to the method of laying down and maintaining the grass. "That's all, is it?" he exclaimed, when the process had been carefully described. "Yes, sir," replied the gardener with a twinkle in his eye, "That's all, but we generally leave it three or four centuries to settle down!"
[13] "There is no garden well contrived, but that which hath an Enoch's walk in it."—Sir W. Waller.
[14] "Field and Hedgerow," p. 27.