David Lester Richardson

“ In no place are such combinations more easy or more proper than in a garden. Walter Scott very truly calls a garden the child of Art. But is it not also the child of Nature?--of Nature and Art together? To attempt to exclude art--or even, the appearance of art-- from a small garden enclosure, is idle and absurd. He who objects to all art in the arrangement of a flower-bed, ought, if consistent with himself, to turn away with an expression of disgust from a well arranged nosegay in a rich porcelain vase. ”

“ The man of the most moderate means may cultivate many elegant tastes, and may have flowers in his little garden that the greatest sovereign in the world might enthusiastically admire. Flowers are never vulgar. A rose from a peasant's patch of ground is as fresh and elegant and fragrant as if it had been nurtured in a Royal parterre, and it would not be out of place in the richest porcelain vase of the most aristocratical drawing-room in Europe. The poor man's flower is a present for a princess, and of all gifts it is the one least liable to be rejected even by the haughty. ”

“ If there were an annual fall of the leaf in the groves of India, instead of an eternal summer, the natives would discover how much the charms of the vegetable world are enhanced by these vicissitudes, and how even winter itself can be made delightful. My brother exiles will remember as long as life is in them, how exquisite, in dear old England, is the enjoyment of a brisk morning walk in the clear frosty air, and how cheering and cosy is the social evening fire! Though a cold day in Calcutta is not exactly like a cold day in London, it sometimes revives the remembrance of it. ”

“ Can any thing be more lovely, than the meadows between the rains of May, when the sun smites them on the sudden like a painter, and they laugh up at him, as if he had lighted a loving cheek!
I speak of a season when the returning threats of cold and the resisting warmth of summer time, make robust mirth in the air; when the winds imitate on a sudden the vehemence of winter; and silver-white clouds are abrupt in their coming down and shadows on the grass chase one another, panting, over the fields, like a pursuit of spirits. With undulating necks they pant forward, like hounds or the leopard. ”

“ Its pleasures are not of an unsocial character; for every visitor, high or low, learned or illiterate, may be fascinated with the fragrance and beauty of a garden. But shells and minerals and other curiosities are for the man of science and the connoisseur. And a single inspection of them is generally sufficient: they never change their aspect. The Picture-Gallery may charm an instructed eye but the multitude have little relish for human Art, because they rarely understand it:--while the skill of the Great Limner of Nature is visible in every flower of the garden even to the humblest swain. ”

“ The purple heath and golden broom, On moory mountains catch the gale, O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume, The violet in the vale. But this bold floweret climbs the hill, Hides in the forest, haunts the glen, Plays on the margin of the rill, Peeps round the fox's den. Within the garden's cultured round It shares the sweet carnation's bed; And blooms on consecrated ground In honour of the dead. The lambkin crops its crimson gem, The wild-bee murmurs on its breast, The blue-fly bends its pensile stem, Light o'er the sky-lark's nest. ”

“ It has been prettily said that the melody of birds is the poor man's music, and that flowers are the poor man's poetry. They are "a discipline of humanity," and may sometimes ameliorate even a coarse and vulgar nature, just as the cherub faces of innocent and happy children are sometimes found to soften and purify the corrupted heart. It would be a delightful thing to see the swarthy cottagers of India throwing a cheerful grace on their humble sheds and small plots of ground with those natural embellishments which no productions of human skill can rival. ”

“ We are thus instructed that man was not meant to live by bread alone, and that the gratification of a sense of beauty is equally innocent and natural and refining. The rose is permitted to spread its sweet leaves to the air and dedicate its beauty to the sun, in a way that is quite perplexing to bigots and stoics and political economists. Yet God has made nothing in vain! The Great Artist of the Universe must have scattered his living hues and his forms of grace over the surface of the earth for some especial and worthy purpose. ”

“ Johnson had no more sympathy with the genius of the painter or the musician than with that of the Landscape gardener, for he had neither an eye nor an ear for Art. He wondered how any man could be such a fool as to be moved to tears by music, and observed, that, "one could not fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs or looking at rough cascades." No; the loveliness of nature does not satisfy the thirst and hunger of the body, but it does satisfy the thirst and hunger of the soul. ”

“ Even the rude unlettered rustic betrays some feeling for the beautiful in the presence of the lovely little community of the field and garden. He has no sympathy for the stars: they are too mystical and remote. But the flowers as they blush and smile beneath his eye may stir the often deeply hidden lovingness and gentleness of his nature. They have a social and domestic aspect to which no one with a human heart can be quite indifferent. Few can doat upon the distant flowers of the sky as many of us doat upon the flowers at our feet. ”

“ The Greeks called flowers the Festival of the eye: and so they are: but they are something else, and something better.
A flower is not a flower alone, A thousand sanctities invest it.
Flowers not only touch the heart; they also elevate the soul. They bind us not entirely to earth; though they make earth delightful. They attract our thoughts downward to the richly embroidered ground only to raise them up again to heaven. If the stars are the scriptures of the sky, the flowers are the scriptures of the earth. ”

“ I love the garden wild and wide, Where oaks have plum-trees by their side, Where woodbines and the twisting vine Clip round the pear tree and the pine Where mixed jonquils and gowans grow And roses midst rank clover grow Upon a bank of a clear strand, In wrimplings made by Nature's hand Though docks and brambles here and there May sometimes cheat the gardener's care, Yet this to me is Paradise, Compared with prim cut plots and nice, Where Nature has to Act resigned, Till all looks mean, stiff and confined. ”

“ The pride in a garden laid out under one's own directions and partly cultivated by one's own hand has been alluded to as in some degree unworthy of the dignity of manhood, not only by mere men of the world, or silly coxcombs, but by people who should have known better. Even Sir William Temple, though so enthusiastic about his fruit-trees, tells us that he will not enter upon any account of flowers, having only pleased himself with seeing or smelling them, and not troubled himself with the care of them, which he observes "is more the ladies part than the men's." ”

“ To build, or plant, whatever you intend, To rear the column or the arch to bend; To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; In all let Nature never be forgot. But treat the goddess like a modest fair, Nor over dress nor leave her wholly bare; Let not each beauty every where be spied, Where half the skill is decently to hide. He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, Surprizes, varies, and conceals the bounds. Consult the genius of the place in all; [016] That tells the waters or to rise or fall; Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale, Or scoops in circling theatres the vale ”

“ Lo! nature seems Accordant with thy silent majesty! The far blue hills--the smooth reposing sea-- The lonely forest--the meandering streams-- The farewell summer sun, whose mellowed beams Illume thine ivied halls, and tinge each tree, Whose green arms round thee cling--the balmy air-- The stainless vault above, that cloud or storm 'Tis hard to deem will ever more deform-- The season's countless graces,--all appear To thy calm glory ministrant, and form A scene to peace and meditation dear! ”

“ Even human Beauty, the Queen of all loveliness on earth, engages Flora as her handmaid at the toilet, in spite of the dictum of the poet of 'The Seasons,' that "Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most."
Flowers are hung in graceful festoons both in churches and in ball- rooms. They decorate the altar, the bride-bed, the cradle, and the bier. They grace festivals, and triumphs, and processions; and cast a glory on gala days; and are amongst the last sad honors we pay to the objects of our love. ”

“ Such is the fate of simple Bard, On Life's rough ocean luckless starred! Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard And whelm him o'er! Such fate to suffering worth is given Who long with wants and woes has striven By human pride or cunning driven To misery's brink, Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven, He, ruined, sink! Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine--no distant date; Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate, Full on thy bloom; Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom. ”

“ What a garden-like air of universal cultivation! What beautiful smooth slopes! What green, quiet meadows! What rich round trees, brooding over their silent shadows! What exquisite dark nooks and romantic lanes! What an aspect of unpretending happiness in the clean cottages, with their little trim gardens! What tranquil grandeur and rural luxury in the noble mansions and glorious parks of the British aristocracy! How the love of nature thrilled my heart with a gentle and delicious agitation, and how proud I felt of my dear native land! It is, indeed, a fine thing to be an Englishman. ”

“ When Miss Sedgwick, the American authoress, visited England, nothing so much surprised and delighted her as the gay flower-filled gardens of our cottagers. Many other travellers, from almost all parts of the world, have experienced and expressed the same sensations on visiting our shores, and it would be easy to compile a voluminous collection of their published tributes of admiration. To a foreign visitor the whole country seems a garden--in the words of Shakespeare--"a sea-walled garden." ”

“ Besides round beds of it she used it as an edging to all the flower borders in her garden. She liked to plant a favorite flower in large masses of beauty. But such beauty must soon fatigue the eye with its sameness. A round bed of one sort of flowers only is like a nosegay composed of one sort of flowers or of flowers of the same hue. She was also particularly fond of evergreens because they gave her garden a pleasant aspect even in the winter. ”

“ II. Rude gods in brass or gold enchant an untaught devotee-- Fair marble shapes, rich paintings old, are Art's idolatry; But nought e'er charmed a human breast like this small tremulous flower, Minute and delicate work divine of world-creative power! III. This flower's the Queen of all earth's flowers, and loveliest things appear Linked by some secret sympathy, in this mysterious sphere; The giver and the gift seem one, and thou thyself art nigh When this glory of the garden greets thy lover's raptured eye. ”

“ The DAISY or day's eye (bellis perennis) has been the darling of the British poets from Chaucer to Shelley. It is not, however, the darling of poets only, but of princes and peasants. And it is not man's favorite only, but, as Wordsworth says, Nature's favorite also. Yet it is "the simplest flower that blows." Its seed is broadcast on the land. It is the most familiar of flowers. It sprinkles every field and lane in the country with its little mimic stars. Wordsworth pays it a beautiful compliment in saying that
Oft alone in nooks remote We meet it like a pleasant thought When such is wanted. ”