GARDEN

ABRAM LINWOOD • URBAN

OF THIS FIRST EDITION OF

THE VOICE OF THE GARDEN

KNOWN AS THE AUTHOR'S
EDITION, THERE HAVE BEEN
PRINTED TWO THOUSAND
COPIES, OF WHICH NINE-
TEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY
ARE FOR SALE. THIS COPY IS
PRESENTATION

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

IN PREPARATION

MY GARDEN OF DREAMS

THE VOICE OF THE GARDEN

VOICE OF E

GARDEN

BY
ABRAM LINWOOD URBAN

WITH DECORATIONS BY

GRACE LILLIAN URBAN

AUTHOR'S EDITION
ILLUSTRATED

PHILADELPHIA

THOMAS MEEHAN & SONS

1912

Copyright, 1912

By THOMAS MEEHAN & SONS

Germantown, Pa.

To MY WIFE

THE FAIREST FLOWER

IN MY GARDEN

2073770

CONTENTS

PAGE

FOREWORD 9

THE GARDEN 17

ART IN THE GARDEN 29

SENTIMENT IN THE GARDEN 51

VOICES IN THE GARDEN 71

OUT FROM THE GARDEN 87

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

INTO THE GARDEN 16

ROSES AND HOLLYHOCKS 28

IN THE ROCK GARDEN 50

A GROUP OF FAVORITES 70

FOREWORD

FOREWORD

FOREWORD

I VERY gladly write a word in welcome to and in
commendation of this little book. Its peculiar
value I think will be found in the fact that
it not only reports an experience and asks
for sympathy, but also speaks a message and
arrests attention. Its appeal lies not only to
every garden lover, but equally to all the gar-
den-less. The parson in his garden, in the cool
of the day, thinks much of and cares much for
the man in the street, in the city's dust and
heat. His book is an invitation, sent forth
with so much winning grace and so much lov-
ing wisdom that many will heed it if they will
but read.

It must be true, if our faith in Christ is true,
that the only cure of every human ill is spirit-
ual. Poverty, suffering, disease, however cruel

and abhorrent in their obvious and bodily
aspects, are still but superficial things if we
think of them as related chiefly to the body.
For the life is more than the meat even as the
body itself is more than the raiment it puts on.
We are often told that a starving body hinders
and handicaps the soul. That may be true, and
yet a starving soul is much more tragic than a
starving body, and a starving soul is not apt to
be overanxious about meat. The relief of bod-
ily necessity, however much it presses as a duty
on every Christian conscience, is by no means
a sure method for the soul's relief. Bodily
comfort, even more surely than bodily distress,
dulls and deadens spiritual need. In the midst
of our generous haste to feed and warm and
heal we need to keep the balance true, and to
preserve the proportion of our faith. We need
to be reminded that man does not and cannot
live by bread alone, and that social service, to
be Christian, must minister to so as to satisfy
man's spiritual hunger. This book will help us
at this point.

It will also help us further, for by a rich and FOREWORD
delicate suggestiveness, it points out how full
of opportunity "to the least of these, our
brethren," the spiritual heritage given to us
all in Christ actually is. The Kingdom of God
is indeed a true democracy. St. Paul's claim
that "all things are ours" by faith is only a
comment on Christ's own promise to the meek
that they shall inherit the earth. Faith is,
after all, the true and the only method of pos-
session. And faith is for the child. "Wherefore
do ye spend money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which satisfieth not?"
It surely would not lessen the eagerness or
spoil the science of our philanthropy if we
gave more consistent and practical heed to
this reminder. Equality of opportunity seems
to be the broadest and best aspiration we can
form for genuine and permanent economic
social reconstruction. We do well to labor for
it with our utmost diligence. But at the same
time it would make for an increase of peace
and health among us all, and for a deep and

THE VOICE OF lasting reconciliation between classes, if we
reminded ourselves that equality of opportun-
ity in spiritual things is not a far-off vision,
but a present fact, and an unalterable law
by which God governs and disposes in His
Church. The flowers and the birds are Christ's
own chosen witnesses to the love that knows no
respect of persons, and to the impartial grace
which gives its choicest fruits "unto this last."

Every child loves flowers, and to flower-
loving children the gates are open to the King-
dom and the Life.

May this book bring many to grow gardens
in their homes and hearts.

PHILIP M. RHINELANDER
Bishop of Pennsylvania

12]

THE VOICE OF THE GARDEN

THE GARDEN

INTO THE
GARDEN

1 6

THE
GARDEN

THE GARDEN

THERE is a very ancient book in which it is
said that "the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden and took the man and put
him in the garden in Eden to dress it and to
keep it." The Bible narrative opens with a
picture of a man in a garden. The story of
Humanity begins there. Was it there that
God meant to train man for his great career?
A little farther on in that old book we read
that when the man and the woman whom God
had placed in that Eden had learned to know
the bitterness of sin and fear, "they heard the
voice of God walking in the garden in the cool
of the day." Is the voice of God still heard in
the garden? Is it in the cool of the day, when
the fret and fever of life pass with the day's
glare, that we are most likely to hear the
[17]

Voice ? I am sure that it is so, and perhaps that

11 i r i i •

tells us why we so oiten see the parson in his
garden.

It is true that our love of the garden grows
as we grow in maturity and serenity of soul.
The garden has its ministries of hope and peace
for the troubled mind, and must not he, whose
purpose and work in life is to minister to the
troubled mind, himself have hope and serenity
of soul ? It is a fact witnessed by the soul of
man in all his history that there are such min-
istries of plant and flower, that there is a close
bond between nature and man, a bond that
makes those ministries real.

That which mainly accounts for the charm
of the garden is, I think, the fact that the gar-
den is something apart. It is due to a true in-
stinct that the real lover of the garden refuses
to make it an open and public display, and
with wall or hedge closes it in and withdraws
it from the world's busy life. The garden is a
place to which the tired in body or mind may
come for calm and peace, and many souls have

there regained mental balance when great sor-

, ,6 . GARDEN

row had come to them.

What it is that in the quiet of the garden
ministers to the soul is not a matter of doubt
with those who have found peace and serenity
there. It is something mystical that draws us
nearer to those realities which in our deepest
moments we know are the realities of greatest
moment to us, but which, in the rush and
struggle of life, are so apt to fade from our
vision. For it is in the silenceof the garden that
its ministries are most real to us — at night,
when the moonlight throws its soft veil over
the sleeping flowers, or in the early morning,

Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at our window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-brier or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine.

It is then that we most feel the beauty of all
things that God has made, and find in all the
divine spirit of love.

I have said that the garden is something
apart. It is a small part of nature brought
[19]

into closer relation with us than the vast ex-
panse of earth and sky. It is this fact that
explains at least in part the peace and calm so
often found in the garden.

I think we touch here one of the deepest
mysteries of nature. There is much in the ex-
ternal world that is terrible or unfriendly to
man. In her vast immensity nature seems
outside and beyond man, aloof from his hopes
and fears, his joy and sorrow, his strivings and
aspirations. How profoundly we realize this
when we look to the clouds or the stars above
us, in the wilderness where no man is, or in
the presence of the great mountains which
seem so impassable and unchangeable! At
such times nature seems altogether heedless
of our feelings or our destiny. This sense of
nature's infinite side often lies heavily on our
souls, and our increased knowledge of her
processes makes the contrast between the
warm and tender human heart and her cold
and impassive, almost relentless, elements
dominate our imagination. It is this aspect

[aol

of external nature which made the poet say, THE

.,.,.. GARDEN

Nature, an infinite unfeeling power,

From some great center, moving evermore,
Keepeth no festal day when man is born,
And hath no tears for his mortality.

But in the garden we get another and wholly
different view of nature. Here she comes near
to us and speaks in tones of tenderness. Out
of the vastness there seem to come, clothed in
beauty, messengers to tell us that the Infinite
Power is not unmindful of the small and seem-
ingly insignificant, but that He clothes the
flower with beauty and feeds the birds that
nest in the trees. Here nature comes near to
our human sympathies as if to enable us to
" see into the life of things, " to give us proof of
the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, and
help us to know that what we see in the beauty
and gentleness of the flowers is part and parcel
of a Love which "moves the sun and the other
stars. " It is the gentler aspects of nature that
in the garden soothe and calm the fretted soul,
that make us partakers of

[21]

THE VOICE OF That blessed mood

In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the wearyweight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened.

But it is asked, is not this, in the light which
science pours upon the garden, after all a very
superficial view of nature even as we see it in
the garden? Do we not find, even there, the
struggle for existence, the strong killing off the
weak? Is not the very soil in which your flow-
ers grow rich in mold that tells of the death of
countless ages of plant and flower? Yes, it is
true. " Every blossom of beauty has its root
in fallen leaves." But "there is a smell of
violets o'er the mould."

There is a life that survives, and science has
given us a wonderfully illuminating word, a
word which enables us to find in death itself the
pledge of fulfilment for our highest aspirations.
Science is teaching us with a great emphasis
that life is an "evolution" from lower to higher
forms, and that it is the law of its progress that

[22]

the lower passes, that the higher may come to THE

r .- \*7u 11,1 u- u j-+- GARDEN

realization. What we call death is the condition

of progress. It is a mark of advancing life.

What a wonderful story science tells of the
progress of life from a simple cell, the most rud-
imentary form of life, "mounting from level to
level on the ladder of progression," until it has
reached man! In that minute cell "were held
all the possibilities of physical and spiritual de-
velopment which we see manifest in cultivated,
Christianized man and woman of today."

And what a page of prophecy it unfolds!
Is not Victor Hugo entirely sane when he says,
"I am the tadpole of an archangel"? He is
entirely sane. And the prophecy and promise
includes all life. While it strengthens our
sense of an immortal life, it includes the idea
that all life is spiritual in its essence, and that
it is all pressing upward for a higher and still
higher manifestation. It gives us ever-growing
confidence of that

One far off divine event

To which the whole creation moves.

[23]

THE VOICE OF One of the deepest effects upon us of the
gentler aspects of nature is a feeling or sense of
constancy in its relation to us.

We pass through the changing year, the
coming of the old favorites in the springtime,
the glory of the golden summer, the deepening
shadows of autumn, and on into the cold of
winter, not doubting that the flowers which
seem to die will bloom again when they wake
from their sleep. We do not fear that we shall
not greet the old friends at the end of their
night ; and somehow the feeling grows that the
mysterious Power, which in some of its aspects
seems stern and hard, is kind and may be
trusted. The flowers help us to believe the
great Teacher who assures us that that Power
is our Father.

It is true, there are those who see no such
truth in nature. What was true of Words-
worth's Peter Bell is true of them—

A primrose by a river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,

And it was nothing more.

[24!

The mole, burrowing in our garden beds,
knows nothing of the hyacinth beyond the
fact that its bulb is sweet and wholesome to his
taste. He sees the bottom only and knows not
that this bulb is only a kind of starting-point,
while the best part of the plant is above
ground. So there are people who see and en-
joy only the material facts. They do not see
"the flower on the spiritual side." For them
the garden has no mystic meanings. They do
riot hear the voice of God in the cool of the
day. The poet's protest must be that of all
souls sensitive to the divine touch—

A garden is a lovesome thing,

God wot, —
Rose plot, fringed pool, ferned grot, —

The veriest school
Of peace, and yet the fool
Contends that God is not —
Not God! In gardens when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign.
'Tis very sure God walks in mine.

ART IN THE GARDEN

ROSES AND [
HOLLYHOCKS

ART IN

THE GARDEN-

IN THE GARDEN

THE GARDEN as something "apart" implies
human appropriation and control of nature for
human purpose. It may be a work of art as
truly as a painting or a cathedral.

There is no such thing as "the art of na-
ture." Nature in the wild is not artistic. Its
beauty is instinctive, spontaneous, unpremed-
itated. Whatever of art we see in nature is
imaginary; we read it into nature by selection
of details and grouping according to art me-
thods. Nature in the garden is nature tamed,
cultivated, made subservient to human pur-
pose, brought into subjection to conscious
purpose. A garden is not merely a piece of
nature fenced in near the house, like a wolf
chained at the back door; but nature culti-
vated and trained like a dog tamed and trained
[29]

THE VOICE OF for human ends. Art in the garden is the hu-

T "" I— I TT f~^* \ O T^ T7* "\.""

man element appropriating and elevating the
natural for human purpose.

This does not mean that nature is to be

i

denaturalized or cultivated contrary to its
instinctive purpose, but that the instinctive
functions of nature are to be lifted into the
higher human sphere. The great end of art is
not merely to enable us to see the beauty of
nature but to take the material of beauty
which nature furnishes and weave it into a
higher beauty expressive of human personality.
The very idea of the garden requires that it
be beautiful. This is its first demand upon the ar-
tist, and for this work he is rich in material, for
he is to produce not merely representations of
nature, but show us the living things of nature
in such relations as will enable us to see them
in their greatest beauty. He is to bring them
within the human sphere, so as to enhance the
beauty, not only by cultivation, but by asso-
ciation which shall make them expressive of
human sentiment and feeling.

[30]

Here is the essential requirement of art in AR

u TU /v f Ju A . u THE GARDEN

the garden, ihe Lije or the garden must be

understood and its laws obeyed, or disaster will
overtake us. In the garden we deal with living
things, and we must learn from them the laws
according to which they exist and thrive.
This done, the living things will yield them-
selves freely to our hands, and reward us with
a wonderfully enhanced beauty.

The/orm which art in the garden must take
depends upon purpose. The kind of garden
to be made determines the idea or sentiment
which is to be given expression.

There is a vast difference between the re-
quirements of a public park or the grounds of
a large estate and those of the more modest
home garden, and it is the home garden and its
intimacies that we have in mind in these pages.

It is also true that the environment of the
home garden may require more formal treat-
ment, or less, as the case may be; but the im-
portant thing is that the home garden shall
express the home idea and the home feeling.

[31]

It may also as properly reflect the individual-
THE GARDEN . /. , , J • , . f

ity or its maker as does the house or its fur-
nishings. Above all, it should be evident that
the garden is part of the home, as really and
evidently so as is the house itself or any room
within the house. The plan must include the
whole home area. Here we find the main for-
mative principle of art in the garden.

This sentiment which we call the home feel-
ing absolutely forbids public display. Its first
demand is the demand for privacy. The gar-
den should, therefore, always suggest retire-
ment. This marks the garden as peculiarly
one's own, and makes of it a kind of sanctum.
Otherwise it might as well be public property.

If the desire for retirement is to be gratified,
if the garden is to be something apart, it must
have definitely marked boundaries. They
separate the home from the outside world.
They shut out the big world and suggest what
home should always be: — a refuge, a safe and
pleasant harbor. They exclude the vulgar
things of the street. Reverence for the sacred

[32]

things of life demands it. Good taste demands ART IN

it THE GARDE>

The garden should be a resting-place for
weary eyes, or head, or heart.

It is this idea of the home that should deter-
mine the unity of design for the garden. The
home idea requires not only harmony of the
parts of the garden itself, but unity as the
whole of the home, including house and other
buildings and grounds intended for other pur-
poses.

Several things will contribute greatly to this
effect. The house should with appropriate
plantings be "tied down" to the ground, as if
it grew there as part of the design. The expert
will tell us how to do that most effectively, but
the one thing to be kept in mind is to make the
house so manifestly a part of the design that
one cannot think of the garden without the
house, or of the house without the garden.
Then the approach to the house and the walks
leading from the house to the more retired
parts of the garden may be made to contribute
[33]

OF greatly to the impression of unity and the feel-
s ing of home. Especially should the garden be
open to view from doors and windows, that in
all seasons and in all kinds of weather one may
realize the oneness of the home. In other
words, the relation of house and garden should
be close, so that passing from one into the
other will be as natural as passing from room
to room within the house.

The garden itself should have an air of re-
pose. As we enter some room of the house with
a sense of its air of more personal interest and
privacy, so we should be made to feel as we go
into the garden that here is a place apart from
the world's busy life where we may find rest
and peace. We should find what John Henry
Newman meant by a "garden mystically."
It should be "a place of spiritual repose, still-
ness, peace, refreshment, delight."

For what we call expression in the garden,
as well as in the house, nothing is more essen-
tial than a certain air of refinement always rec-
ognizable. The requirement whether in house

[34]

or garden is an educated taste. In the garden ART IN
it will be seen in the selection of plants and
flowers and their grouping, and in the sparing
use of architectural decorations. It forbids
anything that produces confusion. It removes
angularity and harshness. It reveals itself in
gracefulness of lines, easiness of transitions,
and in sparing use of striking contrasts. It will
not permit the grotesque, whether in plants or
fantastic arrangement of beds. It refuses to
give room to the eccentric. It always recog-
nizes the fitness of things.

It follows that to express successfully what
I have called the home feeling there must be
present that element in pure beauty which is
called simplicity.

Simplicity is the opposite of ostentation,
extravagance, elaboration, all sins against a
refined taste, whether within the house or out-
side of it. We need, however, to discriminate.
Simplicity does not mean poverty of expres-
sion. It does not require that the design be
bald or severe any more than it requires a face

[35]

rOICE OF to be dull, tame, and void of expression. A
' refined taste does not exclude richness and
polish in the furnishing of a house or garden.
It does not mean bareness or a dearth of flow-
ers. What correct taste demands are purity and
right feeling in the expression of sentiment.

In the garden the grace and charm of nature
should be at their highest, and here the artist of
the garden has his finest work to do. While,
perhaps, his hand should seem to touch it
lightly, yet here the touch must be most effect-
ive. Here is where beauty in form and beauty
in color will contribute most; yet if care be not
taken they will jar with a sense of perpetual
discord. It is here that we find the soul of the
garden, and it should have that play of fea-
tures that constitutes its life, its spirit, and its
charm.

Truest simplicity is entirely consistent with
variety and artful arrangement of groups of
plants, producing different vistas from differ-
ent points of view, and providing delightful
retreats in shade and little nooks where some

[36]

of the sweetest flowers delight to grow and AR
blossom. While a good open lawn is indispen-
sable, plants may be grouped, where space per-
mits, that through and among these may be
smaller glades, giving the place that air of in-
definiteness so alluring to the meditative mind.
To repeat, the garden must be beautiful.
It is the task of the artist of the garden to help
us to see its beauty at its highest. To this end
nature contributes two elements — beauty in
form and beauty in color. These elements of
beauty appear in different proportions in dif-
ferent kinds of art, and human appreciations
of them differ. It will be enlightening to note
how nature uses them. She makes free use of
both, but not without some sense of propor-
tion. She lightens and glorifies her forms with
all the tints and tones of color, delicate and
chaste here, rich and flashing with glorious
beauty there; but no one can study a land-
scape, or a small section of it, without seeing
how greatly its grace and charm are due to its
lines, now wavy and undulating, again straight

[37]

THE VOICE OF and stately, opening exhaustless stores for the
* imagination. This seems to be the ground-
work in nature's plan, and it should be the
main consideration in a plan for the garden.
It will determine the main features of the gar-
den, the direction and curves of its walks, the
position and outlines of all the clumps and
beds.

It is difficult for me to imagine a garden
without flowers, yet I do accept the very revo-
lutionary statement of a recent writer on land-
scape gardening that "a garden may be abso-
lutely flowerless and yet be lovely," and that
"one may have a world of flowers and yet have
no garden in the true sense." I am very sure
that the loveliness which the flowers contrib-
ute to the garden is wonderfully enhanced
when we give them the place that this writer
gives them. She holds them to be "the gar-
den's jewels — the bright gems with which its
design is embellished and 'picked out,' as a
jeweler would say." This idea requires that
the flowers be given a proper setting and

[38]

worked into proper relations with plant life in t

. . 1-11- i THE GARDEN

the garden, just as the jeweler brings out the

beauty of ruby or opal in the setting or pattern
in metal in which he places it.

The controversy between the two great
schools of landscape architecture, the formal
and the informal, need not confuse us. The
simple fact that the home garden must be re-
lated to the house, which is artificial and for-
mal, requires a more or less formal treatment
of the garden, especially in the approach to
the house and the carrying out of architec-
tural lines from the house outward and into
the garden. This is required by the fundamen-
tal laws which govern proportion and design.
It is necessary to a natural and logical transi-
tion from the artificial structure of wood or
stone to the creations of nature in the garden.
The garden mediates between the house, the
most formal kind of art, and nature, which is
entirely lacking in art. The garden makes the
house and home a part of the larger life of the
world, binding them to nature, at the same

[39]

£ VOICE OF time that it preserves its privacy and aristoc-

THE GARDEN . . , ,

racy, showing man above and supreme over

nature.

If the garden be too formal it makes the
home too separate from the larger life, too con-
ventional, "unnatural." If it be too natural,
and careless, and artless, it fails to mark that
rising above mere nature by culture and cul-
tivation which art symbolizes, and which
civilized home ought to mean.

It is this evidence of intelligent human con-
trol of nature that gives to the formal in art its
severe and stately beauty. It imparts to the
garden a dignity which it could not otherwise
have, and for that air of repose which every
garden should have there must be an impres-
sion of dignity. But if the beauty be lacking
in the grace and charm which greater freedom
gives to plant and flower we do not find in it
that refreshment of mind and heart which we
seek in communion with nature.

It would seem, therefore, that the most com-
pletely satisfying style is what one has aptly

[40!

called the "gardenesque, " a combination of ART IN

u f i A- f 1- u THE GARDEN

the formal and informal in such a way as to set

the garden apart from untamed nature, and
yet give us its informal grace in a certain free-
dom of growth permissible within a more or
less formal design.

Something of this we should seek to realize
in our gardens. But that is not all that we may
have. The beauty of form and color merely
as such does not constitute the whole of the
charm of your garden and mine. The garden
implies the human presence and interest. It
is a place for thought and for dreams, and as
we grow in intimacy with the flowers and bet-
ter understand their language, they come to
have a new and higher beauty. It might be
called the beauty of suggestion. We link the
material with the spiritual world, and the
more intimately we enter into the life of nature
the more surely does the material become
spiritualized.

That which I hold to be the main formative
principle of art in the garden — that which uses
[41]

THE VOICE OF nature for the expression of human sentiment

.

and so humanizes and spiritualizes nature-
may be worked out in many ways. One way to
accent this human element in the garden is to
place in it accessories of the nature of garden
furniture. Of course, unless the garden be spa-
cious, it is a mistake to crowd in such acces-
sories. But no garden, however small, is alto-
gether complete if it lack a seat or two located
in some spot conducive to quiet thought, with
some fragrant thing, such as the Sweet Brier,
growing near, and some charming bits of the
garden to be easily seen. And whatever else is
missing in the garden, the sun-dial must not be
lacking. The sun-dial has been beautifully
called the "garden altar." Is it not fitting?
Nothing so impressively sounds the religious
note of the garden. 'There is a mystery of
eternity in a sun-dial" as it marks the shadows
passing. "Amidst ye floweres I tell ye houres"
is a very old motto for the dial face, and noth-
ing tells us better of life passing on into eter-
nity. The sun-dial should be placed in the very

[42]

heart of the garden, that from it we may look AR
in every direction.

Such is what I have ventured to call the
beauty of suggestion; but there is another ele-
ment of beauty of spiritual quality which the
garden may have in a high degree. As the gar-
den grows, association touches it more and
more with a spiritual beauty. Each plant, as
we watch and care for it, acquires a little his-
tory of its own, and about many a spot or plant
tender memories of those we love are gathered.
And so our gardens become rich in poetry and
history.

This is why for me a garden must have trees,
if possible old trees, in it, for nothing in nature
suggests so much of the spiritual, nothing so
gathers traditions about it, as do the trees. A
garden without trees must always be incom-
plete. It is music lacking the strong chords
that give dignity and deep harmony to the
composition. Lacking the shade and shadow,
the landscape composition in an esthetic as-
pect falls as far short of fulness and meaning.
[43]

But for me there is deeper reason for the
THE GARDEN . c , ,

trees in my garden. Sentiment demands them.

What so human as an old tree around which
family traditions have clustered for genera-
tions! What in nature so spiritual as the ether-
ialized trees on a winter evening when twi-
light settles down chill and still, or the length-
ening shadows of a day in summer as it grows
toward the night! Then too the garden has
its voices, not only of suggestion, but actual
audible voices, most of which would be lost to
us were the trees not there. The birds, where
would they nest but for their homes in the
trees ?

How we would miss the call of the robin
from the tree-tops, or the pretty plaintive notes
of the blue bird! Poor indeed is the garden in
which birds find no homes. And the wind, that
"oldest of master musicians," how we would
miss his hymnings among the dark leafage!
What would the garden be without the green
of grass and the sheltering trees with the sha-
dows as they come and shift and steal away?

[44]

This beauty of association can hardly be AR
thought to come within the scope of the artist's
work. It is a spiritual quality. It is a matter
for spiritual perception rather than visual. It
must come with the growth of the garden. It
will be part of its history. But if the architect
of the garden has the soul of the poet, as he
must have to be an artist at all, he will know
how to give the whole an atmosphere in which
such sentiments will be at home.

After all, the real lover of the garden will
make it with a view to intimate friendship with
the living things there. The true lover of
nature will know my meaning. Others will
not. There are those whose eyes are wide open
and they see accurately and quickly, but the
soul is closed. Some of us want a chance of
dreaming. There are those who care little or
nothing at all for what cannot be seen with
eyes, touched with hands, and expressed in
color. Others value the numberless shades of
feeling which come to them as they linger
among the things of the garden.

[45]

The garden should be, not merely a picture

THE GARDEN ,, 11- u u r *u u

to look at and admire, but a home tor the beau-
tiful living things. If flowers have, as I believe,
a language of their own, we want to be on
familiar terms. We want to get close to them
where we can bend the ear to hear their tones.
I like, when I walk in my garden, to find my
friends in the familiar places; a quiet, shady
spot here, a little nook there, where each sweet
face looks up to me as if they knew as well as I
some fine secret not to be told aloud, but
learned by such as love the gentle flowers.

It must be evident that the garden, the real,
the satisfying garden, cannot be made to order.
It must grow. Not only must the plants and
trees grow, but the garden as a garden must
gradually take on character as the soul of its
owner and maker gives expression to the senti-
ment which inspires his work. I have said " its
owner and maker," for in the end one must
make his own garden.

I value greatly the work of the real land-
scape architect. He can do for us what most of

[46]

us cannot do for ourselves. He should be AR
trusted to determine the leading features of
the place and the relative importance to be
given to its parts, but the details should be
determined as the garden develops, and if the
homemaker has the true instinct, his plants
will gradually appear where they are most ex-
pressive of the best emotions.

The landscape architect can give the human
element to the garden, that is, he can mark out
its chief features in relation to the home; but
only the owner can give the more personal ele-
ment by making it expressive of his personal
soul. It is he who must give it the more deli-
cate artistic touch.

The garden to be a garden must be filled
with the personal element. When the archi-
tect's work is done, it remains for the one who
is to possess and enjoy it to stamp upon it that
character which reflects the soul of its maker.

It is not enough that the soul of nature be
in the garden. The human soul must be there
in acknowledged kinship.

[47]

SENTIMENT IN THE GARDEN

IN THE ROCK
GARDEN

SENTIMENT

IN THE GARDEN

SENTIMENT IN THE GARDEN

IN MY garden there is a large place for senti-
ment. My garden of flowers is also my garden
of thoughts and of dreams. The thoughts grow
as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as
beautiful.

How could it be otherwise? Are knowledge
and skill all that is essential to successful work
and real enjoyment in the garden?

It is true, sentiment may have little or no
place in the work of the expert whom you pay
in money. It is true, also, that in the scheme of
the practical man of affairs who has managed
his affairs so well that he can spend large sums
in collecting rare plants and producing elab-
orate display, sentiment may furnish no mo-
tive, may contribute nothing to the pleasure.
He may do all that merely because he has cul-

[51]

OF tivated a passion for doing things on a large
1 scale, or from love of display.

But not so the true lover of the flowers. For
him the garden must be a garden for his
thoughts as well as for his flowers. The garden
would lose much of its charm, the flowers of
their sweetness, and the trees of their mystery,
if divested of the sentiment with which the
imagination and memory clothe them.

In the garden we face large questions. Is it
true that "only to the intimate friend of the
flowers are the joys of gardening revealed"?
The intimate friend of the flowers! Is there
something real in our use of this word " friend "
in speakingof a man's relations with the flowers ?
May we, indeed, carry into our relations with
the flowers something like the beautiful reality
which in things human we call friendship? Is
there in any degree a community of interest
and pleasure between plant and man ? Is there
something like consciousness in plant life?

We are familiar with the sentiment which
poets have read into this thought. We recall

[52]

the exquisite lines by Wordsworth in " Early
Spring," when, feeling nature linking his hu-
man soul to her fair works, he wrote—

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The budding twigs spread out their fan

To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

That the plants are conscious, that they are
capable of "pleasure," enjoying the air they
breathe, that is the poet's belief; not a pretty
fancy, but his serious belief, for in these lines
we have the essence of Wordsworth's nature.
Is it possible, then, not only that man may be
the friend of the flowers, but that the flowers
may be friends to him?

Does Longfellow touch reality when he says—

In all places, then, and in all seasons,

Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,

Teaching us by most persuasive reasons
How akin they are to human things?

[53]

Is Browning less sane than elsewhere when
THE GARDEN , , ,

he declares,

For many a thrill

Of kinship I confess to, with the powers
Called nature; animate, inanimate,
In part or in the whole, there's something there
Manlike, that somehow meets the man in me?

Or Emerson when he says, "The greatest
delight the fields and woods minister is the sug-
gestion of an occult relation between man and
the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowl-
edged. They nod to me and I to them" ?

Of course, poetic reflection is not scientific
evidence. But does the scientist, by his
methods, discern the deepest and highest truth
of nature? Do we not all at times realize that
for real interpretation of nature there must be
the soul of a poet and the gift of an artist?
The artist often tells us that in his pictures he
has striven to express what he calls the "moods
of nature. " Of course, it may be said that the
artist means merely his own moods as they

[54]

are aroused by nature. But may there not SENTIMENT
be a deeper truth in the artist's use of these '
words? May it not be that to his truer sight,
and because of his profounder sympathy, na-
ture reveals more of her mysteries ?

Still, let us ask Science what it has to say
upon this subject. Does modern science have
anything to say? The fact is, prominent scien-
tists are saying some startling things. For ex-
ample, Darwin, son of the great Darwin, as
president of the Royal Society of England, in
his annual address several years ago, declared
his belief that plant life is conscious, and he is
reported to have made the statement that it is
"possessed of faculties up to memory"; and
many biologists and psychologists share his
views. Many will recall the elder Darwin's fine
enthusiasm, who, while always strictly scien-
tific in his methods, never stating anything but
uncolored fact, was filled with wonder and awe
in his study of the lives and conduct of plants,
indicating to his mind something much like
human intelligence.
[55]

THE VOICE OF It is true, there may as yet be insufficient
evidence of a decisive character, as the scien-
tist understands evidence, of the correctness
of Darwin's view, but there are indications
which no true scientist will ignore. All recog-
nize certain responses of plant life to various
influences which are "selective" rather than
mechanical. Consider the beautiful adapta-
tions by which plants have secured favorable
conditions, adaptations which, to use the elder
Darwin's words, "in manifold ways transcend
in an incomparable manner the contrivances
and adaptations which the most fertile imagi-
nation of man could invent."

Consider how the roots of a plant choose
from the soil the food which it needs, one
selecting lime as its preferred food, another
magnesia, another potash. What close obser-
ver of plants does not know that they are sen-
sitive, and under certain conditions even irri-
table ? Observe them in their work and in their
rest, when they wake and when they sleep, and
see whether there is not something there very

[56]

much like nerves. We know how the Sensitive !

DI -n u u • i 1-1 u IN THE GARDEN

riant will at a touch shrink like a hurt thing.

That this plant has something like a nervous
system seems to be proved by the fact that
narcotics weaken its sensibility. It may be put
to sleep with chloroform. If opium be sprin-
kled upon it, it ceases to feel irritants. When
any sudden irritantaffects it, it will quickly close
its leaves, and if the same influence continues,
it will resume its open leaves, as if it had been
surprised at the sudden touch. On a fair day a
few drops of water will cause the leaflets to
close, but the plant soon becomes accustomed
to a continuous spray and the leaflets remain
wide open. An eminent botanist says that if one
of the plants be placed in a wagon the jar will
cause it to close its leaves, but after a drive of a
few miles the leaflets will open, as if it said to
itself, "There is no harm in this kind of jarring.'*
It has been noticed that when the sleep of
plants is broken for several successive nights,
or when violently shaken by the wind in the
afternoon, they suffer from insomnia as we do.

[57]

Fasten open their leaves and so prevent their
ib GAR , , .,, . , , ,.

repose, and they will wither and die.

The philosopher, too, has a word to say on
this subject. For where is to be drawn the line
between conscious and unconscious activity?
Philosophically it is more probable that all life
is conscious in different degrees than that there
is a dualism, part conscious, and part -un-
conscious.

It would be difficult for us to say what kind
of consciousness plants have without more
light on the subject; but surely there is abun-
dant room for reflection as we move among our
flowers or roam through wood and field.

How far, then, may a sane man who has
in his life a place for sentiment press this
thought of community of interest and pleas-
ure with his flowers without being merely
fanciful ?

How far in the evolution of life the plant
has come we may not know, but I am far from
denying what the poet has long loved to be-
lieve and the scientist now tells us may be true.

[58]

I do not find it very difficult to believe, with SENTIMENT

f , • «. u-i u .u i INTHE GARDEN

one or the ancient philosophers, that plants

have mind, pain, pleasure, desire, even knowl-
edge.

This much is true, both the poet and the

scientist compel deeper reflection, and give to

the things which appeal to my senses a more

spiritual quality. I am sure that no sane man

can touch such questions as this without a

sense of awe. In the presence of the tiniest

blade of grass or the simplest flower we face the

great mystery, the mystery of life; and all life,

I must believe, is spiritual in its essence. The

plant is simply a lower form of the same divine

energy which is in man, and is groping, as

Emerson says, "upward towards conscious-
ness. " Surely there is occasion for wonder, and

something of the reverence which Tennyson

felt before the little flower in the crannied

wall-
Little flower — but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

[59]

It becomes a man to consider the humblest
THE GARDEN a , . , f .. f

rlower that grows with a reeling or reverence

and worship, for it is itself a thought, a plan, of
God. And more than that, for to it God has
given something of Himself. He has given life
to it.

There is nothing in the paintings of the
great masters, nothing in statuary, nothing
in the most elaborate decorations of architect-
ure, to be compared with the simple grace,
the delicate tints, the perfect harmony of a
flower.

The glories of art are dead things, but the
little flower is filled with the divine energy
of life; and as we look upon the world more
widely, and into its secrets more deeply, we
are more and more compelled to confess but
One Life pervading the universe.

This little excursion into the region of phi-
losophy has shown us that the garden does fur-
nish cause for the deepest of all sentiments,
wonder, reverence, and worship. The flowers
bring the soul of man into an attitude receptive

[661

to spiritual teaching. They teach humility SI-'.NTIMKNT
and faith.

What beautiful thoughts grow in our "gar-
den of thoughts"! The flowers and the
thoughts grow together. Sentiment gathers
about them as surely as their own perfume.
The very history of the plants is full of poetry
and romance.

To write the romance of "Social Botany"
will require a gifted pen, and when written it
will be an entrancing tale. Go into your gar-
den and ask your trees and shrubs and flowers
whence they came, and they wTill tell you of
seedlings collected in forests and of seeds ob-
tained from the farthest corners of the earth,
many of them secured through adventure and
peril, the recital of which compels admiration,
and brought to their present perfection by a
patient application of scientific method in hy-
bridization of which the untrained mind can
form no adequate conception.

Who can look upon a " Dawson " rose, know-
ing its history, and not let thought go back to

rOICE OF the little garden of the Harvard wizard where
he produced, by mating many parent roses, at
last an offspring so perfect? One grandparent
of the "Dawson" is the "Wichuriana" from
Japan, the other the Chinese "Multiflora."
Their offspring mated with "General Jac-
queminot," and they are the parents of the
"Dawson."

Ask your beautiful Irish "Killarney," or
your gorgeous "American Beauty," the story
of their descent, and they will point to a line of
ancestry reaching back in known history to
the Crusades. Thibault, the redoubtable Cru-
sader, brought the first of those ancestors
from Damascus and gave it a home in the soil
of gentle Provence, France. There a son of
Henry III of England found it growing, carried
it home, and as Earl of Lancaster took it for
his device. Rival claimants to the English
' throne adopted it as their emblem, Red Rose of
Lancaster and White Rose of York warring,
until Henry VII of the Red took Elizabeth of
the White as consort. Thus the rose brought

[62]

by the Crusaders from Damascus became the

• , n r TT , i u -, . , A IN THE GARDEN

national tlower or hngland, where it has had

its most congenial home and developed its
highest perfection.

The annals of the rose tell no finer story than
that of the mating of the "Sweet Brier,"
sweetest of all wild flowers, with a descendant
of the "Damascus" brought to England in the
Crusades. That marriage was brought about
by Lord Penzance, and to it we owe the beauti-
ful scented roses known as "Penzance Briers."

How close to us the flowers come ! How hu-
man and near to the affections they seem!
Linger by the old favorites in the old home
garden. What beautiful associations they re-
call, what tender memories cluster about them!
The Aster, classic flower sung by Virgil; the
Columbine, itself like a cluster of doves;
Canterbury Bells, recalling the pilgrims to the
ancient shrine; Iris, Ruskin's flower of chiv-
alry, "with a sword for its leaf and a lily for
its heart"; the Paeony, flower of distinct an-
tiquity, cultivated since the days of Pliny,
[63]

flower queen among the Chinese and believed
to be divine by the Greeks; the Tulip, held by
Persian lover to be the emblem of his passion
for the mistress of his heart; Evening Prim-
rose, strange flower of mystery; Yellow Day
Lily, with its pretty old-fashioned name,
"Liricon fancy" ; the Madonna Lily, white and
pure as the name it bears; Rosemary, the flow-
er of remembrance: Daffodil and Primrose,
sung by our English poets; Larkspur, Fox-
glove, Speedwell, Blue Bonnet, Bleeding Heart,
Sweet Lavender, stately Hollyhock and splen-
did Sun Flower, all take us back to the gar-
dens of our childhood or suggest poetic fancies
as beautiful as themselves.

The flowers themselves are touched with a
finer beauty and exhale a sweeter perfume be-
cause of what they are in our thoughts and
what they recall. Is not my " Dean Hole " rose
the more charming because it bears the name
of that great lover of roses, and brings to
my mind the many beautiful things he wrote
about roses? Who does not love the "wee,

[64]

modest crimson tipped flower" the more be-

, , D A u i • i [N THE GARDEN

cause the eye or Burns dwelt so lovingly upon

it?

Who would not cherish with tenderness a
plant from "Mother's garden" of long ago?
Of all the flowers that bloom in my garden
none is to me so sweet as the Madonna Lily
and the old "Giant of Battles" rose — my
Mother's favorites. How much closer would
the association be if the plants themselves
could have been brought to my garden from
that which the Mother tended, but that could
not be, for the hand of time has long since
brought great change to the old home garden.

One lover of gardens has a son in far-off
China, who, before leaving his home, built a
pergola in the rectory garden. That pergola
is now covered with Chinese vines, and
about it are grouped fine specimens of oriental
shrubbery, planted there in honor of his work
so far from those who love him best. Does not
the sentiment which prompted the planting
and nurture of those plants add a spiritual qual-
[65]

rOICE OF ity to that garden? Do not the associations
which they recall and the memories which they
enshrine make them richer in true values than
the rarest which money merely buys? And so
my garden is more and more a garden of
remembrance.

While writing these pages I have had in
mind a truth as wide and deep as life.

"The love of flowers, " Dean Hole says, "is
innate." It is true. The little child needs no
instruction from books or teachers to look with
delight upon the flowers. Hard-working men
and women, though shut up in garrets and
crowded streets and noisy factories, will grow
a little plant or two in the window and watch
with pathetic pleasure the opening blossoms.
Is it true, also, as the good Dean says, that this
innate love of flowers is "a remembrance of
Eden"?

Has God put these beautiful flowers every-
where in man's path to remind him of a lost
Paradise, and to keep alive hope of a Paradise
to be regained? It would seem to be even so,

[66]

for He who came to reveal the Father pointed •
to the flowers to teach the greatest of all les- !
sons, the lesson of trust in God, when he said,
"Consider the lilies."

The lilies! They that toil not nor spin! A
remembrance of Eden before the toil began!

[67]

VOICES IN THE GARDEN

A GROUP OF
FAVORITES

[70]

VOICES

IN THE GARDEN-

VOICES IN THE GARDEN

THERE are voices to be heard in the garden.
Some are audible, as in the songs of the birds,
the humming of insects, and the hymnings of
the wind; but mostly garden voices are heard
only by the ear of an imaginative sympathy.

There is a language of the flowers. It is well
to question them. They have something to
tell us.

I am speaking the common speech of man.
The literature of every people reflects it. The
language of botany is full of imagery that sug-
gests it, but it is the common names of the
flowers that tell best how the mystical mean-
ings hidden in the flowers have made them-
selves heard in human speech.

It has been said that "the botanical name
expresses the plant's standing in the scien-

tific world, and the common name reveals its
THE GARDEN , ... , . „

relation to humanity.

The common names show what the flowers
have been to man. How exquisitely poetic
many of them are ! The Easter Lily, the Violet,
Bluebell, Blue Speedwell, Forget-me-not, But-
tercup, Snowdrop, Lily of the Valley, Poet's
Narcissus, Sweet William, Carnation— "to tell
their names is to recite a poem of grace and

light."

What a story these names tell of a "long
human past behind them"! How affection-
ately they are named! The whole vocabulary
is filled with sentiment in which love delights.

The reality in it all is seen in a fact as old as
man and as deep as life — the fact of the in-
fluence of nature upon the heart of man. It
springs from a sense of the inner life of things
and of our relations with them.

Thoreau says that there is a flower for every
mood of the mind. He means, I think, not only
that every flower in some way answers to
something in the soul of man, but that every

[72]

emotion of man finds in the flowers something VOIC
that answers to it. Hence we find in the com-
mon names of so many of the flowers, not only
something of the life of the plant and its affili-
ations, nor merely suggestions of likeness to
other things in nature, but of ideal graces and
passions expressive of man's loves, sometimes
of his superstitions, and often of his religion.
Behind every flower of our gardens, and the
flowers of the field, is some memory, or in it
some suggestion of things deep in the common
heart of man. There is in truth no aspiration
of the soul which may not find an answering
note, no sorrow of the heart for which there
is not a message of peace.

There is a mystical side of nature which calls
to the soul of man and compels the feeling that
there is something that comes through mater-
ial things that is more than material, that is,
indeed, spiritual. It carries our thoughts and
feelings out of the material to something akin
to our own spirits. There is something that
comes through eye, ear and imagination, that
[73]

speaks to the heart and conscience. There are
hints and intimations of something more than
eye, or ear, or mere intellect discovers.

There is hidden, somewhere, in every one of
us, the mystic, and to this hidden man, out of
the deep mystery, Nature speaks. It may be
only when alone amid Nature's vast silences
that this hidden man wakes to consciousness.
There he touches shoulders with strange
things. Some realize this mystical relation-
ship with nature most when in touch with na-
ture's gentleness, but each of us is most con-
scious of it when most alone with it.

This is what explains the charm of the gar-
den for the dreamer when twilight deepens
toward night, and form and color grow less
clear to sight, and the sounds of the outside
world are stilled. It is then that he knows him-
self most near to the great Mystery. It is then
that he learns most of its meaning, though only
a scent with lightest breath touch him, or he
hear no more than the rustle of an overturned
leaf. The rose of summer, or the leaf of

[74]

autumn, the perfume evanescent as the dreams
of youth or lingering as the memories of child-
hood, each has for this soul its message, sweet,
wholesome, and true.

If only we could find words to tell just what
the flowers say to us! But they speak a lan-
guage not easy to translate into our common
speech. The thoughts of the flowers reach into
the heart of things, thoughts often too big for
words.

Then, too, the flowers have their high re-
serves. Few have their full confidence — none
who are not clean of heart. Only the real lover
of the flowers will understand their speech.
What Mrs. Hemans finely says of Walter
Scott among his trees at Abbotsford tells the
way we must learn their language,—

Where every tree had music of its own

To his quick ear of knowledge taught by love.

There is a converse of the garden that can
only be heard by "that inner ear that re-
members."

[75]

Some one has said that the Primrose is "a
beautiful eye looking out from the great inner
sea of beauty." What does the soul that looks
through that eye say to you? I cannot tell.
It depends upon what it sees in you.

Go with me into my garden. It is the call of
spring that we hear. Winds from the South-
land, melting snows, faint odor of swelling
buds, the note of the first bluebird, these are
the call of the spring. It means sunshine and
beauty. The shadow spots and sheltered nooks
are still white, but little sunny knolls in my
rock-garden are bare, and green things are
shooting up. True, the snow may fly again
tomorrow, but a thousand voices proclaim the
coming of our old garden friends. Through the
mellowing earth and the dead leaves some of
them are already thrusting their heads. It is
evident that they are expecting us. If you
understand and know how to translate, you
will hear the voices.

The first to greet us are the Snowdrops,
" fair maids of February. " Brave little flowers !

[76]

See how they hang out their bells as if to greet VOICI
the wind. "Our Lady's Bells," we call them, '
and the name is fitting, for nothing in nature
speaks more plainly of courage and purity.
We think of that " First snowdrop of the year"
which lay on the breast of the nun as on St.
Agnes' Eve she prayed for the purity of its
snows.

Tomorrow, or perhaps next day, certainly
before many days, we shall see the Hepatica
open its blue eyes and look up at us from some
nook where it has been willing to accept a
home, and the Crocus will lift its "chalice cup
brimmed with dew." Do they not speak of
a purity that "knows naught of fear"?

Look now where the green shoots of the
Daffodils pierce the mold and lift their brave
trumpets of silver and gold. Do they not tell
of a courage that "keeps the heart strong be-
cause safe in the Hand that fashioned its
beauty"?

Can you not hear, when winds are still,
The gay fanfare of the Daffodil?

[77]

The Violets ! Who does not love the Violets ?
Of what dear memories they tell! Who would
try to tell what they have whispered in the
ears of young love ?

Shakespeare says/'Pansies are for thoughts."
Men have called this flower "Heart's Ease."
Some one tells how a knot of white pansies was
given to a poor outcast of the slums. She
looked at them and with a burst of tears she
answered them, "I'll try! Indeed I'll try!"
Can any one fail to know what the pansies
said to her?

Summer is here. Will you be with me in my
garden these wonderful days of summer?

Every tree and shrub is rustling fresh leaves.
Bird music is at its height. The summer beau-
t ties offer us their flowers in blue, and white,
and yellow, and rose. The summer flowers!
What a chorus of voices greets us ! How much
they have to tell us! I ask my Hollyhocks,
growing there at the end of the path or in yon-
der corner, and they always tell me that they
are there that I may have "a comfortable

[78]

sense of home." I never miss my chat with the void
"Morning Glories." What gay gossips they are! !
How they peer up and down as if eager for news !
But they are never unkind in their gossip, and
always have a word of cheer for the day.

Maeterlinck speaks of the "loud laughter"
of the Phlox, and do we not hear its gay note
these summer days?

A recent writer calls the Scarlet Sage a
"flaunting braggart." I cannot think it. To
me it says, "I bravely wear the color given me
by the Hand that fashioned me, and I love to
bloom, for I am sent to lend brightness to the
world"; and when I give it a proper setting
among the green things of the border with
some sweet white things near by, its bright-
ness lightens all about it. It is doing there just
what I would have my sons do — take their
place where God calls them and bravely wear
their colors in the face of all the world. If I
misplace my Scarlet Sage the fault is mine.

I often find myself lingering where the Mig-
nonette grows. Why is it that this plain little
[791

flower, for all the world like some dear little

E GARDEN . , f , . . . , . „ . , .

old-iashioned lady, is so universally prized:

Is it not for about the same reason that we love
the dear little old-fashioned lady? This flower
seems to speak to every heart. Just what it
tells me I am as unable to put into fit words as
I am worthily to tell the influence which the
dear little old-fashioned lady has upon me.
Its clinging perfume is like that of a sweet life
lived among us. That, I think, is the secret of
its charm.

The Poppy is to me, like the Evening Prim-
rose, a flower of mystery. Men have had many
beautiful thoughts about it, and I have had
mine. Its sunny face, like a cup filled with
light, is as open as a child's heart, but its
drooping, sleepy buds seem always to be hold-
ing back something. The Poppy fascinates me.
It must be the hypnotist of the garden. Its
seeds bring sleep.

The Rose! Emerson tells us that the Rose
speaks all languages. True aristocrat the Rose
is, telling of gentle blood and good breeding,

[80]

yet she has the world's heart for her own. It VOICI
must be that she calls to something deep in
the common heart of man. Does Dean Hole
tell us the truth of it when he says, "If a man
would have beautiful roses in his garden, he
must have beautiful roses in his heart"?

And the white Lilies! We cannot think of
them without thinking of the Mother who
holds a stalk of them as she bends her head to
listen to the angel of the Annunciation. I can-
not tell what the Madonna Lily says to me;
it is enough that I feel it.

And so I go from flower to flower, and each
has something to tell me. I can understand
why men have given them such charming
names, "the softest in the language." To me
every flower that blooms in my garden, every
flower that blooms anywhere, is beautiful and
full of meaning. I cannot for a moment accept
the statement of William Morris that "red
geraniums were invented to show that even a
flower could be hideous." I could no more
think a flower "hideous" than I could think
[81]

a child so. They both come out of the world-
' old Mystery, and are parts of a plan that I
believe to be good. I think, too, that if we but
rightly discern, we will find that "all that lives
creates its own harmony."

Yes, there are voices in the garden. Every-
thing that lives has its truth to teach, and
if our hearts are attuned to the meaning of
things, we too shall hear The Voice that the
first man and woman heard in that garden
which God planted in Eden so long ago.

Many reverent souls tell us that they have
heard that Voice in the garden. Ruskin says,
"And so it is with external Nature; she has a
body and a soul like man, but her soul is the
Deity."

O, see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,

sang the poet Blake, and Mrs. Browning wrote—

There's not a flower can grow upon the earth
Without a flower upon the spiritual side.
Earth is full of heaven
And every common bush afire with God.

[82]

One of the recently found sayings of Jesus is VOICES
this, " Raise the stone and there thou shalt find
me, cleave the wood and there am I."

Do we not pause reverently before such say-
ings as these? Do they not quicken our sense
of divine reality in Nature? Happy is he who
walks in his garden with something of the soul
of the poet and the faith of the Christian. He
will discern, not only the beauty of form and
color, not only the beauty of the parts as they
relate themselves to the whole, but he will ap-
prehend something of the intimations — the
great thoughts — which come to him through
their beauty, and which make their appeal to
the soul within him. With eyes to see he may
see "the flower on the spiritual side." He will
discern that the beauty which comes to him
through the eye, and the moral light which
shines from behind upon the soul, come from
one center and lead upward to the thought of
One Being who is above both and yet in both.

With reverent soul he will hear the Voice in
the cool of the day.
[83]

OUT FROM THE GARDEN

OUT FROM
THE GARDEN

OUT FROM THE GARDEN

THIS little book but records the thought of
one who has tried to translate in part the mes-
sage which the flowers bring to him. It is a
feeling after an interpretation of nature that
will answer to the spiritual in man. Itgrowsout
of the conviction that in spite of the sterner
aspects which Nature often wears, there is
also evidence of a gentle Goodness as well as an
infinite Wisdom at the heart of things; and in
nature nothing tells us this so persuasively as
do the beautiful flowers. If this booklet should
dispose any man or woman to seek more of
the meditative life, to live more in the garden
of flowers and thoughts, the writer shall be
glad.

But, after all, it is asked, is such a life con-
sistent with the noble "impulse of service" so
[87!

THE VOICE OF characteristic of the better life of our time ? It
is often supposed "that to be a nature-lover
implies unvexed indifference to the human af-
fairs of the time, and that therefore it makes
for a kind of serene and weak utopianism."
Does not the impulse of service lead us to the
place where men most gather, the city rather
than the country, the street rather than the
garden?

Most surely, the true ideal for man is not
that of the meditative life of withdrawal from
common human interests, not that individual-
istic spiritual development centering the soul
upon itself and its moods, but that of service
inspired by a sense of community of life and of
life's interests. It must not be forgotten that
while the Bible story of humanity begins in a
garden, it ends with a vision of a city.

But what best fits us for the service of man?
Is it not best found in the cultivation of a sane
and stable confidence, an unfailing poise and
balance of mind and heart? Without such
poise and repose we become involved in the

elaborate artificiality of civilization or en- (

,r , - , ., f . , ,, THE GARDKN

gulfed in the turmoil or the world s contend-
ing passions. We need inspiration from the
direct and natural, rest from the strenuous and
complex. We need to go at times where things
come naturally and in order.

This is how the garden helps one to be sweet,
sane, and warm-hearted. The very intensity
of modern life demands such quiet as the
garden affords as an antidote and corrective.
Nowhere can be better cultivated what one has
called the "reverent attitude toward life."
Every one who heeds the call to service knows
how much we need what the same writer calls
"spiritual reactions." How often the servant
of Humanity is tempted by a feeling of the
utter futility of his work! How shall we keep
hope alive? How maintain -the poise and bal-
ance so necessary?

I have found it good to go alone into my gar-
den. There, too, I find a drama, intense, com-
plex, ever-moving. There, too, are living crea-
tures, with, as Ruskin says, "histories written
[89!

on their leaves, and passions breathing in their
motion." But there is order. Nothing is pur-
poseless. All are working out their lives to the
legitimate end. It teaches me faith — faith in
the unseen Power which has directed all things
from the beginning, faith in the marvelous
forces without which my plants could not live
and grow and bloom. It teaches me to put my
confidence in One who cares for His creation
and steadily works His will. There are times
when it is well to be reminded that the uni-
verse is in better hands than ours. The One
Perfect Man went into a garden to get strength
for His cross.

In my garden I learn a true ideal of service.
I discover how foolish is the notion of the earth
which men in their selfishness have cultivated.
I am taught that it is not true that here on the
earth all things exist merely to please man,
that the eternal forces work only for him. As I
observe the life of the plant and watch its
struggle for existence, I am taught a real re-
gard for its rights. But I am taught much

[90]

more than that. I see that the plant does not OUT FROM
exist for itself alone. Its one aim is to give its
fruits to the future. It exists to bloom and
ripen seed, and often yields its life in thus giv-
ing on into the future its gifts of flower and
fruit. The plant grows and blooms and bears
fruit, not for itself. Nothing comes back to it.
It ripens its seed only to increase the giving.

Does it not teach us the deepest truth of life?
What is a true service of man? What is love?
What its glory? Is it not that which is also its
pain? The love of a parent never comes back
to him, but is carried on and given to the chil-
dren's children. What is the deepest of all les-
sons taught by Him who has shown us in Him-
self the love of the Father in heaven ? Is it not
that all love is a gift? It came not back to the
Man of Galilee and Calvary, but has gone
on through the ages, the true disciple always
pouring out on others what to him is so un-
stintingly given.

The teaching of my garden does not end
here. The rosebud that greets me in the morn-

[91]

ing will not remain a bud. It must needs burst,
for the life within it is so abundant that it
can no longer contain it all, but in blossomed
brightness and swimming fragrance must let
forth its joy and gladden all the air. To bloom
is the law of its life, and should the bud refuse
to expand, itwould quickly rot at heart and die.
The heart that refuses to give will as surely
wither and die.

My garden teaches me another lesson with-
out which in all service of man our feet would
falter and our hands hang down. It teaches me
hope for my kind. The growing cactus is not
a thing of beauty, but see it when covered with
bloom. It is a blaze of light, glorious among
flowers. Things human are not always beauti-
ful. There are ugly lives, but shall we not
have confidence in a possible bloom, beautiful
and good ?

The plants in my garden all show a capacity
for culture. All these beauties have come from
the one original rudimentary form of plant life.
And what marvels of beauty there are in our

[92]

gardens that are not so in their wild unculti- OUT FROM

A I wu i • «.u THE GARDEN

vated state! What glorious roses that in the

wild are sweet, but simple and humble in com-
parison! Yet, inherent in the wilding is the
power of development.

Shall I not go from my garden out among
men with a surer confidence in the possibilities
of spiritual life?

Is it not well now and then to get away from
men and the crowd and go into the silence
where we may hear the Voice in the cool of the
day?

93

HERE ends The Voice of the Garden, an inter-
pretation of the deeper meanings of plant life,
touched by sentiment, and written by Abram
Limvood Urban, as a tribute to his wife, and
not first intended for publication. Illustrated
by half-tones from photographs of the author's
home garden and decorated by Grace Lillian
Urban, the author's daughter, the whole was
done into a Book for Thomas Meehan & Sons,
of Germantown, Pennsylvania, whose large
nurseries, founded in 1854 by the late Professor
Thomas Meehan, have so greatly contributed
to the growth in the American people of that
love of gardens for which the book speaks.
The typography and binding were designed
and supervised by the Service Bureau of the
Wm. F. Fell Company, who printed the book,
the whole being done and completed in the City
of Philadelphia, in the month of October and
the year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and
Twelve.

A 000045961 o