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THE LURE OF THE GARDEN HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE ILLUSTRATED IN FULL COLOR BY MAXFIELD PARRISH, JULES GUfiRIN, SIGISMOND DE IVANOWSKI, ANNA WHELAN BETTS, AND OTHERS, AND WITH PHOTOGRAPHS NEW YORK : THE CENTURY CO. : IQI I Copyright, 1911, by THE CENTURY Co. Published, October, igi i 5B TO MY MOTHER WHO LOVES ALL GREEN GROWTH, AND HAS PLANTED MANY A GARDEN I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK OF MINE CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PACK I OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS 21 II WASHINGTON'S GARDEN 45 III CHILDHOOD IN THE GARDEN 63 IV THE SOCIAL SIDE OF GARDENS 85 V GARDENS AND GOSSIPS 107 VI GARDENS OF SOME WELL-KNOWN PEOPLE ... 125 VII SOME GARDEN VICES 145 vii CONTENTS viii GARDENS IN LITERATURE 165 IX GARDEN GATES 191 X GARDENS PUBLIC AND BOTANICAL 211 XI WINTER WONDER 235 XII POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE .... 247 Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "Rhododendrons from the Himalayas" Frontispiece Wistaria on an Old Colonial House 4 The Entrance to an Italian Garden 9 Foxglove and Roses and Canterbury-Bells 14 "Along the Paths Walked the Great-Grandmother" .... 20 Climbing-Roses Over a Porch 25 Square Terraces Step Downward from the House 29 "Herself as Lovely as Any Flower that Grew" 33 A Charleston Garden 38 Nelly Custis in the Mount Vernon Garden 44 The Old Watchman on His Rounds Again 49 The Long, Straight Rows of Flowers 53 "How Well a Child Becomes the Garden" 62 A Pathway Bordered with Box 66 A Garden Wall 70 " Let Them Live Close to Its Flowers " 73 A Place to Dream and Linger in 77 " Before the Time of Formal Gardens " 84 A Visit on the Lawn in the Olden Time 94 Through Green Arbors 99 " Gossip is Not Necessarily Unkind " 106 A Garden Path 114 ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I'AGE The Path by the Long Pond i i 7 Vistas of White and Green 124 Where House and Garden Meet 127 Entrance to a Cornish Garden 132 The Poplars at Augustus Saint- Gaudens's House, Cornish . . 137 "The Mildest and Best- Behaved of Gardens" 144 A Pergola 147 Grass-Bordered Beds 152 A July Evening . 156 " Within High Walls and Jealous Hedges " . . . . . . . 164 Terraces and Pools in a Persian Garden 167 At the End of the Terrace- Walk 172 A Place of Continual Enjoyment 177 "The Golden Dream Beyond" 183 "A Hint to the Imagination of Each Passer-by" 190 Entrance to a Garden Through an Avenue of Pines . . . . 194 Cloisters, Many-Arched 203 " In the Garden a Breathing Fragrance " 210 Pools and Silences 213 Where the Shrubbery Reaches High 220 The Enchantment of Green 225 A Winter Bouquet 234 "For a Garden in Winter is a Lovely Thing " 239 " This Delicious Solitude " 246 Lotus and Water-Lilies in a Japanese Garden 252 Pool and Pergola 255 X THE LURE OF THE GARDEN GARDEN SONG BY AUSTIN DOBSON Here in this sequestered close Bloom the hyacinth and rose, Here beside the modest stock Flaunts the flaring hollyhock ; Here, without a pang, one sees Ranks, conditions and degrees. All the seasons run their race In this quiet resting-place ; Peach and apricot and fig Here will ripen and grow big ; Here is store and overplus, — More had not Alcinous. Here, in alleys cool and green, Far ahead the thrush is seen ; Here along the southern wall Keeps the bee his festival ; All is quiet else — afar Sounds of toil and turmoil are. Here be shadows large and long ; Here be spaces meet for song ; Grant, O garden-god, that I, Now that none profane is nigh, — Now that mood and moment please, — Find the fair Pierides. WISTARIA ON AN OLD COLONIAL HOUSE THE LURE OF THE GARDEN INTRODUCTION IN spite of its material of green leaf and fragrant flower, a garden is the work of man. It requires human care, human companionship, human love; and yields a return that is peculiarly mingled of nature and art, bestowing upon any who enter its exquisite precincts something of the sanity, wholesomeness, and simplicity of the world of out-of-doors, together with the better portion of the grace, interest, and social charm of the world within the house. Its fountains murmur a lilt not too distant from the laughter or the tears of those who carved the stone basins into which the water drips. In bower and green way a compre- hending solitude lies waiting for whoever comes to seek its quiet pleasures, and there is hardly a mood known to man for which the garden has neither solace nor inspiration. While any gathering of friends or THE LURE OF THE GARDEN comrades becomes more intimate there, where even the shyest takes heart of grace, where the most self-con- scious forgets to pose, where words come readily to the silent, and where silence is never irksome. The garden, in fact, provides the most perfect of social backgrounds, possessing all the advantages and none of the drawbacks of its parents, the wilderness and the palace, those two extremes between which man moves, one the expression of all that lies beyond his control, the other the result of everything he has learned to force into his service. There are few who do not feel at home in a garden. The roughest or most cultured, the simplest or the world-weary, the child, the woman of fashion, the en- ergetic or the lazy, the materialist on his clod of earth, and the poet in his rainbow maze — all of us, saint and sinner, sad or gay, enter a garden as though it were our own, unoppressed by its most princely magnifi- cence, touched and attracted by its simplest form. The lure of the garden! It has drawn us from the beginning of history, and draws us now. Persian po- tentates and Egyptian queens in the days before Moses, delighted to live in one ; and in the scurry of modern existence English M.P.'s and commuters' wives escape from the cares of state and the terrors of housekeeping to plunge into the mysteries of planting and pruning, renewing their strength like Antaeus at every touch of mother earth. As for that special and curious order 6 INTRODUCTION of humanity, lovers, "Come into the garden," has been a universal cry with them, until lovers without gardens or gardens without lovers are equally unimaginable; possibly each exists, but it must be in a halt, amor- phous fashion, pitiful to contemplate and tragic to endure. Stories of gardens have come to us from the re- motest times. The story of Eden is co-eval with the story of man himself, and many magic gardens have sent their spellbound legends down through the ages. The golden-appled gardens of Hesperides, the dim Elysian Fields where Orpheus sought his Euridice, Arabian places where strange fruit hangs on mysterious branches, with many another of fairy lore or folk tale. For it has always been the way of man to create in the region of the imagination a more perfect example of the earth-made, tangible thing he has been able to produce in the world of matter. Let him but love anything sufficiently and instantly he translates it to fairy-land, where it acquires an immortal loveliness, a consummate perfection beyond the reach of his earthly powers. Since gardens and mankind have always thus belonged together, it is no more than natural to suppose that they will continue in delicious proximity as long as eternity itself. And it is the sincere convic- tion of most that not only mansions, but gardens, are prepared for them in their future existence. Like many good things, gardens improve with age. 7 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN Here in America there are necessarily none that are really old. For the red man was in no other way so truly a savage as in the fact that he knew nothing of gardens. Nevertheless, there are a few in the Old Dominion and in New England that date back almost as far as the white occupation, and which breathe the gracious perfume of a vanished day. In the generous climate of California, moreover, nature brings flower and vine and tree to so quick and vigorous a growth, and mellows the sun-kissed walls so soon after they are built, that the passage of time is scarcely needed to give these southern places all the beauty of long- lapsed years. Italy and England may well dispute the palm for supreme loveliness in gardens. The warm ardor of the former, the adoration of her people for art, form, color, for keeping outdoors and living among flowers, has evolved one beautiful expression of this art, as the moist fertility of England, the country life there, and the long tenure of the estates, with a dis- tinct passion for growing things, has brought about its own consummation of perfection. In the wonderful days of the Italian Renaissance, women took a keen joy in building and planting gardens that have survived to this day, and are among the most exquisite on earth. Much of the medieval life was passed in them. Here duchesses and prin- cesses held court under the ilex and the rose; here the 8 INTRODUCTION gay, the noble, and the witty discussed or read the last poem, acted quaint masques, or sang to lute or viol pas- sionate canzone destined for immortality. Beyond the marble balustrades flashed the bright sea or dreamed the purple mountains, and up and down the steps and past the fountains and the statues half hidden in green shade swept lords and ladies not less brilliant in color than the most splendid of the flowers about them. It was in a garden outside the walls of Florence that the Boccaccio novelli were related day by day. No room, howsoever sumptuous, could be conceived of as holding that bright assemblage, could have set free the wit and romance of the story-tellers, as did the shady slopes and statue-haunted precincts of the great garden where they met. In the town were plague, horror, hateful death. In the garden a breathing fragrance, sweet health, and even merry hearts, or at least careless ones. As for England, it is difficult to imagine her without terraced gardens where the grass is thicker than moss and greener than anywhere else on earth, where the great trees have flung their deep shadows in a mighty circle these many centuries, and where even in winter a pale rose will still find courage to bloom. Great gardens she has whose very names are history, and where the landscape artist has reached his apogee. And small gardens hushed within high walls, where the wall-flowers spill their musky odor and standard 1 1 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN roses step primly beside the path, and where the night- ingale keeps the long June nights awake. Here half the social life of England is passed. The small householder gives his garden quite as much care and thought as he does his house. He improves upon what his father has done, projects new plans and cher- ishes the old ones. At five o'clock he welcomes his friends there. And tea in an English garden is Eng- land at her best and most intimate. An English house seems forever leading you to its lawns and flower beds. The windows open on the green spaces or flower- edged walks, its whole being turns to it, as it were. Here the nurse-maid sits of mornings at her sewing while the children dig in their own beds, or question the despotic old gardener, whose rules they must im- plicitly obey; while the afternoon brings the master from his work in the city for an hour or two's refresh- ment before dinner, and the evening sees the family and their guests, with a rug beneath them to guard against the ever-present dampness, taking their coffee and cigarettes on the lawn, while they listen to the nightingales. Here it is that the life of the home cen- ters, finding among the flowers its greatest charm and freedom, yielding to casual caller or cherished guest its most delightful hospitality. The following book is pledged to convey to its readers something of this social side of gardens old and new. Following no strict rule or formal plan, but 12 FOXGLOVE AND ROSES AND CANTERBURY-BELLS INTRODUCTION picturing old parks and pleasaunces, historic spots where romance was as busy as history, where duch- esses gave fetes and powdered gallants occasionally fought duels ; telling too of village merry-makings with old-time games and dances; of magnolia-planted southern places dedicated to hospitality, or northern gardens whose generous gift of posies or scarlet berry the utmost rigor of the weather could not wholly dis- courage. In fact, the intention is to go wandering through many and many a lovely place of flowers and greenery, to show the most stately as well as the jolliest of garden ways, possibly to moralize a bit on the habits, the virtues, and the vices of garden owners, to point out a few famous gardens and relate a few old tales. Above all, to indicate how the social value of a garden is coming to be better understood and enjoyed here in America; how even a very small place is capable of yielding a vast deal of pleasure, and how the secret of thoroughly using a garden is one well worth the knowing. The perfect garden should give something of its fragrance and beauty to the world at large, refreshing each passer-by with a glimpse at least of climbing flower and waving bough. But it must have hidden recesses known only to the favored ; walls to keep it inviolate, shelter and peace and calm, or it is not really a garden. And now we will push open the gate. . . . 15 OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS IN AN OLD GARDEN BY CHARLES BUXTON GOING The garden beds are prim and square, Box-bordered, scenting all the air, And fruit-trees on espaliers crawl Around the high, old-fashioned wall. Some little Mistress, long ago, Set out each straightly ordered row ; She watched the spicy pinks unfold, The hollyhocks and marigold ; And standing in the poppy bed Is the old dial, where she read : ' Life is a Shadowe ; soon 't is Night. Looke thou to God, thy Sun of Light" Ah me ! how many, many years Since Death dried all her mourners' tears, And mourners' mourners, one by one, Passed from the "shadowe " to the Sun! But here her flowers portray her yet, Demure and sweet as mignonette, Tripping, beneath the arch of limes, To tend her posy bed betimes. And where the sunlight lingers most, Musing, I sometimes think her ghost Breathes through the quiet paths, and dwells A moment by the foxglove bells. A dainty, gentle ghost, that treads Light as the air around the beds — Light as the fragrant breath that blows The falling petals of a rose. And when, although there is no breeze, A little whisper fills the trees And poppies bend their heads and stir — I think they know and welcome her. 'ALONG THE PATHS WALKED THE GREAT-GRANDMOTHER." CHAPTER I OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS IN the North, most of them were small; not too much labor for her own hands, aided in the dig- ging and the heavier work by the man of the family, or lacking him, by some one hired as occasion demanded; both town and village gardens that owed their being to the housewife, had her impress upon them, and yielded not alone flowers and beauty, but medicinal herbs and vegetables. They seem to have had " green fingers," these grandmothers, to belong to those of whom it is said that a dry stick will take root, let them but plant it, and after whose footsteps flowers spring up, as though they were princesses of fairy-land. All of us, of course, were not so fortunate as to have owned these plant-wise an- cestors, skilful in garden ways, wise and gracious women, creating in the wilderness little places of delight. Nevertheless, there were many of them, as can be seen throughout New England, wherever the old houses remain. The gardens they made were not often the result of fixed plans or formal designs, but began close 2 I THE LURE OF THE GARDEN to the house, embracing it with vines and sheltering it with flowering shrubs, to spread out as time and occasion served and the needs of the family increased. With the Puritans utility went hand in hand with beauty in the garden, and the box-hedged beds that grew savory or sweet herbs, small fruits or simples, looked quite as lovely to the gardener as the hollyhocks and primroses imported from England. Tomatoes, under the name of love-apples, were kept in the decorative portions and trained on ornamental trellises, being thought poisonous, while the southern wall was used as in England to ripen quinces and apricots against. It was the old-fashioned posies, many of them new enough then, that were planted in beds and borders: gillyflower, love-lies-bleeding, snapdragon, purple loosestrife, guelder-roses, heartsease, foxglove, lady's- slipper, eglantine or sweetbrier, since run wild over the country. Roots of sweet violet were carefully carried all the long way from England, as was ivy and honeysuckle. They flourished famously in the new soil, disputing with the narrow paths their right of ex- istence, rejoicing in color and sweet odors, speaking in each healthy bloom and twining tendril of love, of care and gentle humoring. The Faiths, Phoebes, Patiences, and Contents, for the names of the women were as quaint as those of their flowers, most of whom had faced perils and bitter hardship for an ideal, had strongly individual charac- 22 OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS ters, and this individuality showed itself in their gar- dens. For of these, though they were fashioned of precisely the same materials and given approximately the same space, no two were alike. Their apparent formlessness was not lack of expression ; on the con- trary, it was the subtle expression of a living face rather than the steadfast stare of a statue. Like the houses and the furniture of the period, the gardens reveal taste. They were never pretentious. They were comfortable, livable. The arbors, covered with grape-vines, were close to the back door, easy of access, places where the mother might sit quietly over much of her work. The flowers were to be picked, some to fill the pewter bowls, others for making essences and waters, or to be carried to a sick friend. Flowers first tended to become a major part of gar- dening in England during the seventeenth century, and it is to this we owe the fact that the notable flowers and shrubs of England struck root here so early. Neither Puritan nor Cavalier would leave the new glory behind, so that both the grim New England land and the more ardent plantations of the South were enriched with the flowers of the mother country, as well as with her corn and cattle. Narrow and hard the Pilgrim fathers may have been ; but at least in their wives' or daughters' hearts the love of beauty lingered, and found an outlet in the garden ; rose, larkspur, and stock feeding the secret springs of 23 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN sentiment as the peas and beans and cabbage fed the body. There is something singularly touching to us of the present generation in these old gardens, as we find them now in the old towns, scarcely changed inside their high brick walls, and within whose circumscribed space so many frail and busy hands found joyful labor, so many patient eyes a calm delight. As the iron softened in the soul of the people and happiness and beauty were no longer regarded as sins, the utilitarian side of the garden was less insisted upon, fruits and vegetables were relegated to a place of their own, and the trium- phant flowers gaily overran the spaces left vacant. This was about the hour that our actual grandmothers came in at the gate, and inaugurated the most charming era of the American garden. On the stern foundation pre- pared by their mothers, they laid a softening touch, breathed a more glowing summons over slip and bulb and seed, and were franker of their love. In an ancient part of Salem, Massachusetts, two old maiden ladies occupy a commodious but simple frame- house that has altered little during the century and more of its existence. A strip of grass and shrubbery inter- pose between house and street, while to the left, over the palings, one can see the path curving round invit- ingly and plunging into the green depths beyond. Follow this path, and a charming old garden reveals itself. Cherry-trees and wistaria overarch it, disputing 24 OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS the dominion of the air, while on all sides the peren- nials, long since insurgent trespassers from the beds where they were planted, mingle their colors in an intoxicating jumble. Lilies of many sorts, white and purple and spotted ; tall pale larkspurs and canterbury- bells, and bachelor's buttons running the gamut of blue from white to indigo. Candleberry, smoke-bush, snow- balls jostle the roses that take refuge on the roof of the summer-house and porch, and in and out of the fence. Myrtle, or periwinkle, with its geometrical flowers of sober blue and its polished leaves, scrambles every- where, and from odd corners stocks and spice-flower send their sweetness. All the old-fashioned sister- hood, in fact, wander as they will within the pre- cincts of this garden. The old wooden benches stand comfortably under the trees, beyond whose shadow the sun steeps his rays in the tangled color ; a languid, murmurous hum from bee and beetle accentuates the silence, a gentle, interested silence, as of old days brooding over the place, musing of past events. Hither came Hawthorne in his youth, escorting his cousins back from some evening sociable with shy cour- tesy. " He had not much to say, but his silence never made you feel uneasy," the younger of the two sisters will tell you, going back to her girlhood with a smile. " Perhaps he was always a little relieved to say good- by at the gate, however. But he liked to spend an 27 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN hour or two in the garden, and we used to leave him to wander about there by himself, smelling at the flow- ers or eating the fruit in its season. At times he would stay out there an entire afternoon, hidden from sight among the bushes, or, if any of us did cross his path, smiling silently and looking very content. Later on, he used to bring his wife, and while we were getting tea we could hear them laughing and chatting. He loved flowers, I think." The garden was trimmer in those days, and the old ladies young. But the green old age of both is very sweet, very peaceful, and the spirit of a vanished day is still incarnate there. New England had its big places too. There is an ancient garden in Sharon, Connecticut, that began to take shape as soon as the Revolution had ceded to peace. The fine house, high and broad, high enough to admit a world of sun and air, broad enough to pro- duce a sense of brooding tenderness, the sense of home ; the terraces, the orchards, the fish-ponds, many of the flowering trees and shrubs, remain much as they were, except that the honey-locusts have grown gigantic, and the lilacs and syringa look in at the second-story windows. A tall, green fence of palings whose tops are cut into a clover-leaf shape protects the place and sequesters the garden proper from the fields and lawns. In the past this terraced portion covered two acres, planted with 28 SQUARE TERRACES STEP DOWNWARD FROM THE HOUSE OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS both flowers and vegetables, but it is smaller now, and the vegetables have been banished. The ponds are connected by a riotous brook, reached by way of a broad walk bordered with rows of brilliant annuals on either side, and almost entirely overarched at one time by superb shrubbery, since dead. The path ends just where the brook escapes from the first pond in sprayey falls, and there an arbor buried in honeysuckle and guelder-roses shelters seats for the weary or the idle. The square terraces step downward from the house, divided into many beds by box-bordered paths. In the great-grandmother's time, there was in one corner the garden of herbs, and a huge asparagus bed, a new thing then, as well as many vines bearing white or pur- ple grapes, from which wine was made during the fall days. Some of the old flowers still linger in the bor- ders, such as valerian, marvel-of-Peru, and moss-pinks. But where the asparagus grew the daffodils and jon- quils nowadays spread a carpet of gold. The solid, fine nobility of the house and grounds, their effect of space and permanence, and old-world, courteous bearing re- main unchanged, however ; are, indeed, accentuated by the lapse of time. Along the paths, wearing a great leghorn hat on her high-piled hair, and in a gown of brilliant flowered chintz, walked the great-grandmother, then a young bride, superintending the work of servants and slaves, keeping careful watch on everything, and noting the 3* THE LURE OF THE GARDEN varying occupations of days and seasons in her diary. The wine-press at work, herbs gathered and dried, "a busy morning in my Still-Room," where cordials and waters were distilled or expressed, the planting of this and that, particularly the making of that famous aspara- gus bed, which she watched from a camp-stool under a willow, carrying an umbrella and wearing galoshes, "for it was wet after last night's downpour." In the South a different mode of life evolved another sort of garden. Gardens more like the great old English places, but more glowing, more luxuriant. The work was done by hosts of slaves, and room and money and inherited luxury were the rule rather than the excep- tion. The accumulated taste of generations sought its expression in these southern gardens, and a touch of stateliness marks them. Much thought and study was given to laying them out, and landscape artists were brought from abroad to assist in designing them. Coldstream Plantation, in South Carolina, is an ideal garden of this kind, and remains almost perfectly what it was, improved and enriched by its century of green security. A wonderful repose lies like a holy spell upon the place, a blessed sense of peace belonging both to house and grounds. The house brings to mind the line of the old poet, May I a small house and large garden have, for small and simple it is compared with its garden, 32 "HERSELF AS LOVELY AS ANY FLOWER THAT GREW. OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS • though large enough to make a home for a goodly family. The hedges of Coldstream are perhaps its greatest beauty. They are of various kinds, but unusually fine of growth and shape. Ancient box, smelling good in the hot sun, and smooth and solid as though carved out of blocks; cedar and oleander, mock-orange and arbor- vitae, twice as high as a man's head; cherokee rose, evergreen trimmed into immense arches, and holly. These hedges encircle the whole garden, and divide it furthermore into various sections, each given over to special loveliness or important uses. Thus the rose-garden, the tea-house, the children's playground, are all magnificently framed. But the preponderant beauty of the hedges does not prevent the rest of the garden from being wonderful. It blooms the whole year round. In January come the violets, white and purple and fragrant, the hyacinths and crocuses, and little flowers with lost names, rarer nowadays than those called rare. February brings the yellow jasmine that flowers before it leaves, and in the sun-warmed corners tulips and narcissi shake out perfume on every wander- ing breeze. The plum blossoms wreathe their snow upon the boughs, the Chinese almonds grow subtly sweet and lovely, while before the month has fairly merged into March, the gay company of daffodils are nodding in the wind and the dogwood flings wide its snowy banners. With March forsythia weaves a mist of 35 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN gold, and many-colored irises make rainbow festival, while the forest-trees turn suddenly green and rose. But wait for April, and then walk down the luring path between the lofty hedges to the northeast corner, where the garden touches its apogee. Behind the Chi- nese almonds the tea-arbor shelters gaily, and between this arbor and the house the path separates in all direc- tions, making geometrically shaped beds that are filled with color. Here the spiraea hangs its drooping fronds of flowerets and the magnolia blooms magnificently. The creamy banana shrub steeps the air with its heavy scent, white and pink diervillas, lilacs in bewildering variety and honeysuckle tumble into flower — and then, some sudden day, the azaleas blaze into flaming color, so radiantly glorious as to be entirely unbelievable, ex- cept that there they are. Towering high overhead in swelling masses, scattering vivid petals on grass and gravel, all in sunset hues of rose and pink and crimson, yellow and cream and warm white, unforgetable, amazing. Next come the intense crape-myrtles, the syringa, waxy-white, and the roses, of every color and size and shape. Gardenias come with the sweet-peas in May, and then, too, the oleanders turn both pink and sweet. Month by month, hidden in its encircling hedges, the garden brings its various blossoms to perfection. Even in December it has roses and camellias to show, while the autumn days are intoxicating with late lilies and 36 A CHARLESTON GARDEN OUR GRANDMOTHER'S GARDENS tall dahlias and the fire of the dying leaves. It was early in 1800 that Robert Witherspoon brought his bride home to the simple white house and great garden, telling her she was lovelier than any flower it grew. And ever since the garden has been cherished and en- joyed. But all the southern grandmothers did not live on estates. There were town dwellers there, as in the North. Perhaps Charleston has retained the gardens they made in their original perfection more surely than any other of the old cities, those high-walled gardens of ante-bellum days, whose builders were full of the traditions of seventeenth-century England and France, when gardens grew divine. There is, for instance, the Miles Brewerton House, with its walled garden. The house is a fine type of the early Georgian with brick-arched loggias overlook- ing the space of flowers, that stretches north and south. Down the center goes a wide pathway, overarched by an arbor completely covered with the twining branches of one gigantic climbing rose. The flower beds extend on either side, brick-edged and bordered with sweet violets and other small and fragrant plants. Close to the house the oleanders and acacias bloom and crowd, and vines are all about, clambering over porches and walls and trees. So secluded it is that the wild song- birds come here to nest, careless of the city close around. 39 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN These high brick walls are characteristic of Charles- ton's gardens. They are various in design, relieved by elevations and blind arches, by small turrets and square ends. Often they are entirely hidden under the English ivy, or softly pink from long standing in sun and rain. Some are coped with stone. All lend magic glimpses of the wonderlands they shelter, through an arched gateway or unexpected opening, or by spilling over a shower of wistaria or laburnum. But these places are essentially town gardens, made to lend se- clusion and quiet to the house, as well as loveliness, and to be lived in as part of the home. They are lova- ble, discreet, and sequestered, nor are they entirely sel- fish. For down the steps and beside the porches, over the walls and through the lattices, the flowers give every passer-by hints and promises and prophecies, no full revelation, but exquisite glimpses. Charm is the key- note, and the perfect relation of house and garden each to each, and both to their owners' needs, whether of body or soul. Surely our grandmothers of the North and the South, working in a new land and under strange conditions, left us a worth-while heritage in these posy beds and garden closes of theirs, a heritage whose value we are growing to appreciate, and whose example we shall do well to imitate. 40 WASHINGTON'S GARDEN MOUNT VERNON WRITTEN AT MOUNT VERNON, 1786 BY DAVID HUMPHREYS By broad Potomac's azure tide, Where Vernon's mount, in sylvan pride, Displays its beauties far, Great Washington, to peaceful shades, Where no unhallowed wish invades, Retired from scenes of war. To thee, my friend, these lays belong : Thy happy seat inspires my song, With gay, perennial blooms, With fruitage fair, and cool retreats, Whose bowery wilderness of sweets The ambient air perfumes. Here Spring its earliest buds displays, Here latest on the leafless sprays The plumy people sing ; The vernal shower, the ripening year, The autumnal storm, the winter drear, For thee new pleasures bring. Here, lapped in philosophic ease, Within thy walks, beneath thy trees, Amidst thine ample farms, No vulgar converse heroes hold, But past or future scenes unfold, Or dwell on nature's charms. NELLY CUSTIS IN THE MOUNT VERNON GARDEN. CHAPTER II WASHINGTON'S GARDEN THERE is a garden in America that has in its keeping a memory so hallowed as to lend it the quality of a shrine. To the man who found a vital joy in laying out the grounds and plan- ning the house it yielded rest after great labor glori- ously performed, peace after the tragic violence of years of war, home after the arduous career of leader to a new-born nation and all the harassments of public life. Washington's garden ! We have no other place like it in the country. Many a relic of past days remains to us, assuredly; church and tomb, birthplace and monument. But here is a garden of growing flowers, broad lawns, stately trees and winding paths created by the same man to whom we owe a new ideal of patri- otism and the foundation of our being as a nation; looking now much 'as it did when he lived here, im- proving it day by day, planting the trees that spread their magnificent branches over house and drive, build- ing the walls now overgrown with climbers, finding time to superintend everything, from the rotation of 45 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN crops on the farms belonging to the estate to the care of the rare exotics in the large greenhouses. The situation of the house on the gentle rise over- looking the river and the blue hills of Maryland is a fine one. It is spacious, dignified, and simple, like the mind that perfected it, having balance and nobility of character, together with a satisfying harmony. It is, indeed, a visible incarnation of Washington's spirit, even to a certain sternness and precision in the original plan, softened and mellowed by passing time and the green growth of nature. The house and garden are intimately associated, making between them the home. There are no formal beds of variegated leaves distrib- uted like the pattern on a quilt about the lawn, but the grass flows from the columned veranda in a broad ex- panse toward the Potomac, exquisitely diapasoned with the moving shadows of the trees and bordered by ir- regular masses of flowering shrubs. The hand of the soldier is manifest in the planting of the trees, and though there is precision, there is no pretension. It is not a show estate, but a dwelling to be loved and lived in, and to welcome friends to. Even the hosts of sight- seers who throng to it in the hours given over to the public cannot dissipate this salient characteristic. Gently serene, the place appears to be awaiting the return of its master, faithfully fulfilling its seasonable tasks, but changing little with time. The broad sweep of the driveway, the approaches to the stream, the long wind- WASHINGTON'S GARDEN ing paths and framed vistas are as Washington planned them. His, too, the prim box-hedges and such of the walls as remain. Behind the greenhouses, in the past, stretched the long straight rows of flowers where Mrs. Washington gathered basketsful of blooms for the house ; here, too, were her savory herbs, and a bush or two of lavender. Very lovely the old wall is now, with its soft tones of gray and rose and cream, where the shrubbery reaches high, lifting its blossoms above the coping. The paths are bordered with narrow beds of flowers, and there are many other straight long beds that are a mass of color and fragrance, and vocal with the hum of bees. Contemporary letters and sketches give many a view of the General, clad in sober drab costume and wide- brimmed hat, riding or tramping about the estate. Judg- ing from notes in his diary and letters of his own, he was far more interested in the fields and farms than in the flower garden proper. Nevertheless, he notes on a certain January 10, that "The white-thorn is full in berry," and also remarks that he has been planting holly. Beyond much doubt, however, it was Martha Washington who had the chief care of the more deco- rative part of the homestead. She it was who filled the beds with seeds and roots in the spring, and cut the fresh flowers, or clipped off the faded ones in summer. That was woman's work, and though the General was fain to wander among the roses with a keen pleasure in 47 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN their beauty and sweet smell, he left their care to his wife. In a corner there is a certain old white rose-bush that tradition, in the voice of the caretaker, informs you is the identical one beside which lovely Eleanor Custis plighted troth with Lawrence Lewis, the preux cavalier of his day. Nor were these lovers the last to find hap- piness beside the fair bush. For tradition goes on to say that ever since the rose has proved a fatal spot for man and maid, and that many a happy pair first found courage to ask and to answer the great question as they paused to look at its burden of bloom. To-day, no more than in sweet Nellie's youth, can lovers resist the persuasion of the white rose-bush. Possibly some po- tent spell lingers in the perfume of its flowers, or the spirits of lovers now dead set other hearts to beating where theirs beat before. At all events, any couple who dread the chains of matrimony will do well to avoid the old bush, harmless and sweet as it appears to the eye in all the bravery of its June blossoming. One likes to imagine that this bush was planted by Washington and his wife some wet spring morning, when the earliest-come birds were twittering on the bud- ding boughs: planted with laughter and much argu- ment as to just where it would look best, and finally set in its place by those strong hands behind whose capable power lay a heart not less warm with human love than noble with sublime faith in ultimate human THE OLD WATCHMAN ON HIS ROUNDS AGAIN. of his d piness 1 say thai : lair bush. nee the aund that mai nd to answej t for und > , To - rs resisi or the eating vho 'as planted by >rirjg morning, and finally apable j; :>ve than WASHINGTON'S GARDEN good. Surely the white rose-bush, so planted, may well have acquired a quality beyond that of any other of its kind on earth. A plan of the place as it was in Washington's day still exists. It was drawn in color by Mr. Samuel Vaughan of London, who visited the General in 1787, and was approved by Washington, with the addition of a slight correction. The lawn and the two groves of trees in front of the house are the same to-day. Behind, the plan shows the small circular grass-plot surrounded by the driveway. Below this a large fiddle-shaped lawn extends, framed by trees in marshaled rows, and flanked on either side by the big kitchen-gardens. Close to the house were the numerous cabins for the slaves, the quarters for white servants, the tailor and boot- maker and blacksmith shops, etc. A spring-house, a smoking-house, stables, and spinning-rooms, even a school, all are arranged in symmetrical order. The kitchen-gardens were inclosed within brick walls, and a "stately hothouse" stood in one. Mr. Vaughan notes that the General "owned 12,000 acres, whereon were several farms, five of which are kept under cultivation. . . . He breakfasts at seven, then mounts his horse and canters six days in the week to every one, a circuit of about twenty miles, inspecting and giving directions for management at each, and returns home at two o'clock." A charming country-gentleman's life. And while Washington rode forth over the estate, his lady gave 51 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN her orders for the planting of this and that in her gar- dens, saw that the paths were raked and the beds weeded, and sent word through her distinguished hus- band to thank a friend for the present of "roots and flower seeds." Probably Miss Custis moved about the sweet-smelling beds a good deal, vivid as a flower her- self, on visits there. And the General's nephew, George, with his own wife, also dwelt in the " Delightful Man- sion," going the rounds for his uncle when affairs of state called the latter away; for Washington was still needed by his country. The best time in which to see this beautiful and kindly spot, and to conjure up its past, is when the long shadows begin to stretch themselves on the grass, weary of their dancing through the day. A mist lies white on the river, stealing up as the twilight deepens to creep among the trees and drift over the garden in wraith-like wisps. Gone are the excursionists with their noisy ad- miration; not a footstep passes, at least no human tread. Instead there are scurryings of the little creatures of the earth and air, the chuchurr of myriads of insects, the evening song of birds in the rich gold and purple light of the dying day, the stirring of the wind in the trees. So many birds ! The cardinal, fluting its joyous notes before it drops like a flame to the ground from the dark mystery of a huge oak ; the song-sparrows and linnets, measuring their ripple of music over and over again ; the robins calling from every tree-top ; then, THE LONG, STRAIGHT ROWS OF FLOWERS WASHINGTON'S GARDEN after the moon is up, the June night is sometimes flooded with the tangled melody of a mocking-bird, weaving its silver mesh of song after all the other singers have hushed their last notes. Now the fireflies begin to gleam over the lawns and among the shrubbery. The shadows increase, and are full of the smell of honeysuckle. An exquisite blue haze rises and wraps itself about the tops of the trees, inter- posing an almost impalpable presence between the garden and the rest of the world. The moon shines white on the white house, sharply outlining the columns, and the night wind tosses the shadows about oddly. Murmuring with unseen life, moist and warm and fra- grant, the garden waits. . . . Is it a shade among the shades? Or really a tall figure in a cloak, with a three-cornered hat giving a glimpse of nose and chin? It seems to bend over a white mist-form as though in converse. Now both move slowly toward the house. A deep quiet broods throughout the garden, a welcoming silence. Surely the two figures are those of a man and a woman ; see, he lifts his hat and raises his face toward the light with a movement full of dignity and peace . . . or is it but the shimmering of a white lilac stirring to the breeze ? Fancy, deceiving elf, has lost her power, or you your true seeing. At all events, the trees are swaying again, the insects busy with flute and viol, and the heavy lilies nod their heads indifferently. 55 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN It was, to be sure, the larger aspects of the estate that most interested Washington; he took to farming with the same energy and far more pleasure than he had to fighting. He utters wisdom on carrot and bean, and asserts that he has "a high opinion of potatoes." But, when the day's business was accomplished, the rounds made and directions given, with dinner com- fortably over, it is pleasant to think of the country's father as having strolled between the flower-beds, smok- ing a long pipe perhaps, his hands clasped behind him, his eye quick to detect any neglected bush or plant, or any opportunity for improvement, and yet noting with delight the fresh growth and lusty flowering around him. In his mind, doubtless, old memories of camp and office mingled with the present whose fine fruit he was enjoying; much talk of past and future there must have been, as the old verses that preface this chapter tell, as well as pregnant remarks on the beauties of nature. Hither came the traveler from distant lands, to look upon the hero of a new epoch, living out the last, quiet years in such simplicity ; and here, too, the great men who had helped him in his work, and the new generation that was to carry it on. So let us leave him and his garden, moving softly away through the rich June night along the paths he trod; with a last look at that old white rose-bush, glimmering rather mischievously under the moon, medi- tating maybe upon its dangerous but delicious mission, 56 WASHINGTON'S GARDEN and scattering its petals in a magic circle about it; and just one more backward glance before we go, half-fan- cying we hear a slight commotion, as though the old watchman were on his rounds again. . . . 57 CHILDHOOD IN THE GARDEN THE FLOWERS BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON All the names I know from nurse : Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse, Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock, And the Lady Hollyhock. Fairy places, fairy things, Fairy woods where the wild bee wings, Tiny trees for tiny dames — These must all be fairy names. Tiny woods below whose boughs Shady fairies weave a house ; Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme, Where the braver fairies climb ! Fair are grown-up people's trees, But the fairest woods are these ; Where if I were not so tall, I should live for good and all. "HOW WELL A CHILD BECOMES THE GARDEN." CHAPTER III CHILDHOOD IN THE GARDEN IF all children might be brought up in gardens, there would probably be few criminals raised, and many of the more unhappy developments in the race be finally swept away. Practically every child loves gar- dens, adores digging in the ground, and comes very soon to taking an interest in the right way of planting and caring for growing things. Put a child into a gar- den, and with little instruction and no trouble you make him healthy, happy, and quite wise enough. How bet- ter can you educate his sense of beauty and order or cultivate in him a perception of natural laws ? Give him his own special corner, his feeling of responsibility. The burden of flowers is a slight one to lay on young shoulders, and will broaden and straighten the alert young bodies, not bow them down. Answer all his questions too ; it may necessitate a good deal of study on your part, but you won't be sorry for that. On many of the English estates a portion of the land is set aside for the "children's garden," and as much attention is given to its arrangement and completeness 63 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN as to the rooms reserved in the house for the same young people. In this garden each child has a section for whose appearance and use he is responsible. There is usually a lawn for a playground, trees that can be climbed, and a pavilion or summer-house where lessons can be studied out-of-doors or games played on rainy days. Sometimes there is a stretch of smooth turf for bowls or croquet, or even a tennis ground, according as a greater or less amount of space is available. But, small or great, the place belongs to the children. They raise what they choose, fruits or flowers or vegetables, make their mistakes, and do all the work. They can have all the advice and guidance they want, but they are left free to make their own decisions and follow their own taste. Sometimes there are prizes for the prettiest bed, the choicest flower or finest vegetable, the contests being properly handicapped with regard to age and experience. The tiny plot belonging to the young- est toddler may present a rather bare and uneven ap- pearance, to be sure. All the more do those belonging to the older ones witness, in color effects, neatness, and their well-cared-for state, how rapid is the advance made and how easily these outdoor lessons are learned. Some children undoubtedly develop more taste, more natural skill and feeling for garden work than others. But the child who does not take more than a perfunctory interest in the subject is almost always the child who has never been given the chance. CHILDHOOD IN THE GARDEN Unluckily, many people who have children do not own gardens, or at best spend but a short period of the year within reach of them, and there are many thou- sands of boys and girls who never know what it is to work in the ground. In an effort to overcome this sad condition, school gardens have been started in different municipalities, particularly the Middle West Children who, driven from the streets to the tenement-houses and back again, had learned everything of which a child should be ignorant, and who had come to act in ways thoroughly appropriate to their hard and hideous surroundings, were taken to these gardens and set to work. The result was and continues to be wonderful. Like Antaeus renewing his strength at each contact with the earth, these children acquired a youth and joy they had never known, turned, in fact, into real children, digging up, as it were, out of the ground they worked, that in- nocence and happiness which should have been their birthright Small lads of six and eight, already marked in the books of the law as "incorrigibles," toiled at the new labor, becoming almost what they ought to be at that age. Brown, lusty, red-cheeked under their broad straw hats, looking confidently up into your face as you came to see them at their planting, these " in- corrigibles" strove with one another to produce the largest tomatoes, the fattest peas or beans, the most radiant nasturtiums or finest geraniums, pouring into 67 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN their work all the energy that, before a garden gate had opened to them, spent itself in mean and ugly deeds. Even the child who is brought up with the utmost care and all the advantages, but who has never had this privilege of the garden, has lost a precious possession, has not been treated quite fairly, has been deprived of a host of lovely memories and much valuable experience. Though your place be small, try to reserve a bit of it for the children ; and where this cannot be managed, at least let the youngsters into your own garden. Let them live close to its flowers, even though a small foot treads over the borders now and then. Give them a pair of scissors and let them help cut the blossoms for the house, or snip off the dead ones ; teach them to weed, to transplant, to train vines. You will be sur- prised to see how well a child becomes a garden, how much lovelier each is for the other. And it is they who, in the spring, will find the first snowdrop or crocus, or be found lying flat on their stomachs in the grass, solemnly staring at a violet. Teach them that a garden looks to them for consideration and care, and must be gently treated. It is a lesson a child learns easily, and if he does work any havoc, he will be in greater distress over the accident than you yourself. Many a memoir or biography testifies to the strong impression produced upon the mind whose earliest years were spent in a garden, and though most of 68 CHILDHOOD IN THE GARDEN childhood may have faded into the indistinguishable background of the past, old people have no trouble in finding the old paths, in hearing again the murmur of the fountain and the voices of vanished playmates, or in remembering what flowers had first bloomed for them. And those among us thus fortunate in their youth who come back into a garden, find their memo- ries stocked with all sorts of useful odds and ends of information regarding the best way to make this or the other thing grow, how deep seeds are to be planted, when to separate perennials or transplant annuals, with heaven only knows what beside ; and this though years have intervened since we closed the gate of our child- hood garden behind us, with never the time since to open another. Gardens resemble reading in this, that where you have not acquired a taste for either in youth, you will never completely acquire it. And yet the atmosphere of flowers, as that of books, should be incorporated into the personality of every one, insuring as it does in a turbulent and hazardous world no small degree of happiness. Humanity has long joined in the ac- knowledgment that the love of reading is one of the great blessings of life, a rampart against ennui, an asylum from sorrow. Just as certain is the relief afforded by a garden. When you plant in a child's heart the love of its tended beauty, you are giving him an open sesame to the palace of peace, a refuge from 71 THE LURE OF THE GARDEN the dust and glare of the arena, something to which he can turn with joy when other interests die. Many things happen in the soul of a child of which we have little conception, traveling as we do daily far- ther from the east. Dreams and fancies crowd upon them, and in seeking to adjust the world within to that without, important transmutations occur. It is as well that these adjustments should not be too violent, nor the contrast between dream and reality too marked in the beginning. If your child spends hours musing down there where the fountain drips musically into the little pond overfull of white and red lilies, you may feel sure that he is building part of a foundation of life not unworthy. Send him and his brothers and sisters out to play under the pink wonder of the azaleas, or to chase the flying leaves over the lawn when October gives the signal for the fire dance, and something beside the rewards of exercise and fresh air will be given them. Teach them their lessons in the rose-grown summer-house, and if their attention wanders, following the tip-tilted flight of a butterfly or harkening to the excited warbling of a wren, do not bother overmuch. The best things are not taught in words, and what man has done is not the only truth to be learned. And as for health ! Just look at them, kept out from earliest morning to sunset, reeking of mother earth like a root fresh plucked from the soil, lusty of limb and 72 'LET THEM LIVE CLOSE TO ITS FLOWERS. ant transmu itments tween