Dion Clayton Calthrop

“ Then the wand is waved again, and the cloak is off. It is her husband; and she shrinks, this time in terror. He stands like a stone. She waits for a blow--for a curse. But suddenly he kneels among the petals of the forgotten rose. Is it he begging forgiveness of her? She has no thought for that; only that she always loved him. She bends to him, he takes her hands. He rises and she lifts her face. Their lips join.
Alice and Uncle Edward draw the curtains.
There! That's how they get back among the gods. ”

“ It is possible to imagine the Saint on his knees at night, the trees, dark masses round his garden, a heaven above him pitted with stars, the smoke of his breath as he prays rising like incense. And, as has been known to be the case, all wild animals fearless of him, and friendly to him in whom they see, by instinct, one who will do them no harm. As Saint Jerome laid down with the lions, as Saint Francis spoke with Brother Wolf, and Sister Lark, so Saint Fiacre must have spoken with his friends, the beasts. In the heart of a gardener lies something to which all wild nature responds. ”

“ There is a gleam of truth in the representation, and you may see the real Jane Shore in a high steeple head-dress, with a thin veil thrown over it, with a frontlet or little loop of black velvet over her forehead; in a high-waisted dress, open in a shape from shoulder to waist, the opening laced over the square-cut under-gown, the upper gown having a collar of fur or silk, a long train, broad cuffs, perhaps 7 inches long from the base of her fingers, with a broad, coloured band about her waist, a broader trimming of the same colour round the hem of her shirt, and in long peaked shoes. ”

“ The average person who passes a cottage garden is more moved by the senses than the imagination; he or she drinks deep draughts of perfume, takes long comfort to the eyes from the fragrant and coloured rood of land. They do not cast this way and that for curious imaginings; it might add to their pleasure if they did so. There are men who find the whole of Heaven in a grain of mustard seed; and there are those who, in all the pomp and circumstance of a hedge of Roses, find but a passing pleasure to the eye. ”

“ But our hearts are not in tune with the picture; we feel the lack of colour, of romance, of everything but money, in the street. Suddenly a magnificent policeman stops the traffic; there is a sound of jingling harness, of horses’ hoofs beating in unison. There flashes upon us an escort of Life Guards sparkling in the sun, flashing specks of light from swords, breastplates, helmets. The little forest of waving plumes, the raising of hats, the polite murmuring of cheers, warms us. We feel young, our hearts beat; we feel more healthy, more alive, for this gleam of colour. ”

“ Out of the vast dreary waste of faces who pass by unheeding, and the unseeing world that does not care whether he lives or dies, he makes his small hoard of treasures, as a child hides marbles, thinking them precious stones—as, indeed, they are to those who have eyes to see—and, be they books, or pictures, pots of plants, or curious conceits in china, they all answer for flowers, for the bright-coloured spots of comfort in a life of doubt.
No man thinks this out carefully, and sets about to plan his garden in this spirit: he feels a need, and meets it as he can. ”

“ No doubt Madame Fashion saw to it that the changes were rung sufficiently to make hay while the sun shone on extravagant tastes. The coat was held at the waist with a sash of silk tied in a bow with short ends. Towards the end of the reign, foreshadowing the Elizabethan jerkin or jacket, the custom grew more universal of the coat with sleeves and the high neck, the bases were cut shorter to show the full trunks, and the waistcoat was almost entirely done away with, the collar grew in proportion, and spread, like the tail of an angry turkey, in ruffle and folded pleat round the man’s neck. ”

“ Of what is the colour of green that the earth’s best page is made of it? Of what is the colour of young green that it brings, unbidden, tender thoughts? It is more than the gold of Corn, and the brown of ploughed earth, and the glory of flowers. By it comes peace to the eyes, and through the eyes to the heart of man, so that men say of youth and the times of youth that they are salad days; and of old age, if so be it is a fine old age, that it is green. It is the colour of the body as blue is the colour of the soul. ”

“ To turn out one of those extraordinary creatures with a cart-wheel round the middle of their persons.
As the reign died, so did its fashions die also: padded breeches lost some of their bombast, ruffs much of their starch, and fardingales much of their circumference, and the lady became more Elizabethan in appearance, wore a roll under her hair in front, and a small hood with a jewelled frontlet on her forehead. It was the last of the Tudor dress, and came, as the last flicker of a candle, before the new mode, Fashion’s next footstep. ”

“ At first sight the somewhat expansive imagery of this definition might appear over-vague and unsatisfactory where a very definite question, like a garden of flowers, is concerned. But, come to see it in a lofty light, and at once its truth stands clear. A garden is the proper adjunct of a house, and a house, fully said, is a dream come true, yet still surrounded by the clouds of infinite possibilities. It is always growing, is a true home. Like a flower it expands to every sweet whisper of the wind. Like a flower it shuts at night, or opens to accept the dew. ”

“ It was made, this collar, of such stuff as lined the cloak, maybe it was of fur, or of satin, of silk, or of cloth of gold. The tremendous folds of these overcoats gave to the persons in them a sense of splendour and dignity; the short sleeves of the fashionable overcoats, puffed and swollen, barred with rich appliqué designs or bars of fur, reaching only to the elbow, there to end in a hem of fur or some rich stuff, the collar as wide as these padded shoulders, all told in effect as garments which gave a great air of well-being and richness to their owner. ”

“ Sometimes we see one cottage garden, next to a Paradise of colour, flaunting Geraniums, and all the summer garland, and in it a poor tree or so, a few ill-kept weedy flowers, overgrown Stocks, a patch of drunken-looking Poppies, a grass-grown waste of choked Pinks: the whole place with a sullen air. What is the matter with the people living there? A decent word will beg a plant or two, seeds and cuttings can be had for the asking. Is it a poor or a proud spirit who refuses to join the other displays of colour? ”

“ A fellow to him, one of his own kidney, will wear the skirt of his tunic a little longer, and will cause it to be cut up the middle; his sleeves will not be pendant, like drooping wings, but will be swollen like full-blown bagpipes. An inner sleeve, very finely embroidered, will peep under the upper cuff. His collar is done away with, but he wears a little hood with cut edges about his neck; his hair is cropped in the new manner, like a priest’s without a tonsure; his hat is of the queer sugar-bag shape, and it flops in a drowsy elegance over the stuffed brim. ”

“ To bury is but to plant the dead that they may flower into that new life. And he is usually a humorous character, a man of well-chosen words who surveys his garden of headstones and has a word for each. He is no respecter of persons, since in the tomb all are equal, and to see him at work preparing a fresh place for burial is to think that the gravedigger’s work is no melancholy task. In the heat of summer, half buried in the grave himself, he sings some old catch as he shovels up the earth. ”

“ All alive with birds and flowers and village children, butterflies and trees; fed by broad rivers, or hanging over singing streams or deep in the lush grass of water meadows gay with kingcups.
This garden is for us who care to know it. We can take the road, our garden path, and pluck, as we will, flowers of all kinds from our borders; sleep in our garden on beds of bracken pulled and piled high under trees; or on soft heaps of heather heaped under sheltering stones. If we know our garden well enough it will give us food—salads, fruits and nuts; it will cure us of our ills by its herbs ”

“ Up and down the five white steps from the garden path to the house more than five generations have passed, men in wide-skirted coats and full wigs hanging about their ears in great corkscrew curls, men in powdered wigs, rolled stockings, square buckled shoes, men in stocks and immense collars, and big frills to their shirts making them look like gentlemanly fish, down to the man who comes out to day who looks a little old-fashioned, and is square-built like the house, and who parts his hair like the men in Leech’s pictures, and who wears a rim of whisker round his face. ”

“ Indeed enamel is a happy word, for what do your flowers do but enamel the earth with their sweet colours, and in pattern, choice, and variety, will surpass all things made by man alone.
And here I take my leave of paths, that great subject that should indeed be a book to itself, for if a man sit down to think of paths he begins to follow one himself, and, starting from the cradle, ends at the grave, or, pursuing some path of history, comes into the broad high-road of all learning, or looking up and observing the stars finds a train of thought in following the path of a star. ”

“ From the tops of omnibuses the first Violets are seen. Anemones have their turn, and Mimosa, and Cowslips, and Roses soon glow in the midst of the traffic, and elegant Carnations in their silver grass, and great piles of Asters. So we may read the year. All through the grey and desolate Winter these flower women hold their own, through cold and rain, and pale Winter sun they keep the day alive with the glowing colours of flowers. I often wonder, as I see them sit there so patiently, if they know the joy they give the passer-by, or if they are more like the rocks on whom flowers grow by nature. ”

“ When all the garden lies cold and bare and stripped of green, the trees roar out an answer to the wind, an hundred garden voices swell the storm, and you sit happy by your fireside and dream new colours for the garden beds; and where a white frost sparkles on the earth, and trees lift up bare fingers to the sky, you see deep wealth of green, and jewelled borders brim full of spring flowers, and there a set of bulbs you have nursed, come out sweet in green sheathes, and here a tree, now naked, clothed in young green. ”

“ After all, when we see a cottage standing in its glowing garden, with a neat hedge cutting it off from its fellows; with children playing eternal games with dolls (Mr. Mould’s children following the ledger to its long home in the safe—shall I ever forget that?) , we see the whole world, cares, joys, birth, death and marriage; the wealth of nations scattered carelessly in flowers, spoils from every continent, surrounded by a hedge, its own birds to sing, its hundred forms of life, feeding, breeding, dying round the cottage door; and, at night, its little patch of stars overhead. ”

“ But it is more beautiful to plant the graves of those we love with flowers, as then we symbolise that they are alive in our hearts and for ever flowering in our thoughts. And the shadow of the church over them is but the shadow of the wing of sleep. All our lives, said a French King, we are learning how to die; and when the time comes we cannot help but think of that Garden of Sleep where we must be placed along with other sleepers, there to wait.
In England it has long been a habit to plant the more melancholy trees and shrubs in churchyards, as Yew trees, Myrtle, Bay, and the evergreen Oak. ”