Dion Clayton Calthrop

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I can smell the Roses blooming over his grave.
There should be a sundial in every garden to mark the true beginning and the end of day; some noise of water somewhere; bees; good trees to give shade to us and shelter to the birds; a garden-house with proper amount of flower-lore on shelves within; a walk for scent alone, flowers grown perfume-wise; a solitary place, if possible, where should be a nest of owls; a spread of lawn to rest the eyes, no cut beds in it to spoil the symmetry, and at least one border for herbaceous plants. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Yet many a man will walk over a field of grass pressing the Daisies with his feet, and take no heed of them, or of the stars over above his head; and the night and the day will be to him but light and darkness, and the stars but lanterns to show him home, and the Daisies but flowers of the field. But if he be a man who sees all, and in everything can feel the finger and pulse of God, his staff will blossom in his hand, and he will go on his way rejoicing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A PRIMROSE BANK NEAR DORKING.
7There is that in the hum and business of a garden that makes for peace; the senses are softly stirred even as the heart finds wings. No greeting is as sweet as the drowsy murmur of bees, in garden, lane or open heath. No day so good as that which breaks to song of birds. No sight so happy as the elegant confusion of flower-border still wet and glistening with the morning dew.
I heard a man once deliver a learned lecture on the Persian character, full of history, romance and thoughtful ideas. ”

“ Where one garden boasts little but old packing-cases, drying linen, a few stalks of hollyhocks, and one or two giant sunflowers, the very next will show borders full of all varieties of flowers in season, an eloquent picture of what may be done with a little trouble. The consolation and pleasure these little town gardens give is out of all proportion to their size. The man who can come home to a villa, however badly built and hideous, and it often appears that some competition in ugliness has won suburban prizes, can find a delight all good gardeners know in working his plot of land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And now nearly all the ghosts vanish, and the old man who is sitting under the Acacia tree looks around and sees his garden as it is to-day, fuller of flowers than ever it was, with the hideous set borders done away with, with the little rustic arches pulled down and a pergola, properly built, in their place, and all of the horrors of Early Victorian gardening gone for good, the plaster nymphs and cupids, the tree called a “Monkey Puzzler,” the terrible rockery of clinkers and bad bricks. Here, as in the house, taste has triumphed over fashion. ”

“ The thrush is certainly my favourite garden bird, both for his looks and his song, and the blackbird I like least, for they are bundles of nerves, screaming away at the slightest suggestion of danger. The robin is a fine impudent fellow and friendly in a truly greedy way, following the smallest suggestion of digging with an eye for a good dinner, so that if you are only pulling the earth up in weeding you will have the brisk little gentleman at your elbow, head cocked on one side, and an eye of the greatest intelligence sharply fixed on you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE GARDENS OF THE DEAD It is a beautiful custom that we put flowers on the graves of our dead, and is more fraught with meaning than many know, for it is as a symbol resurrection that they are so placed, inasmuch as the flower that seems to perish perishes only for a while but comes up again as beautiful, and though it die into the soil it reappears all fresh and lovely with no sign of the soil to mar its beauty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Naturally, when one casts one’s eyes over a picture of a Roman garden in England, and compares it with a garden of to-day, the very first thing we find missing is that mass of colour and that wonderful variety of bloom that constitutes the apex of modern gardening. Where they were surprised, or gave themselves sudden shocks to the eye, it was by means of little grottos, fountains, vistas at the ends of long alleys, statues in a wild part of a garden, or unexpected seats commanding a prospect opened out by an arrangement of the trees. ”

“ It is a hot Summer afternoon, and so still that not a Rose leaf of those spread on the lawn stirs. A large white sheet lies on the lawn covered with thousands of rose petals left to dry in the sun, and when they are dry, and have undergone a careful mixture with spices, and have herbs added to them by the mistress of the house, they will be placed in china bowls in all the rooms, and will give out a subtle delicious odour.
The man who is dreaming in his garden can see the four gentlemen as plain as life raising their glasses and touch them before drinking the silent toast. ”

“ Worth owning England, with all the wonderful mornings, and the clean air; worth waking up to the scent of Violets; worth lying on your back near a Bean field on a summer day; worth seeing the Bracken fronds uncurl; watching kingfishers; worth having the fields and hedgerows for a garden, full of flowers always—I should think so. I earn my bread, and I’m happy, far happier than most men. I can lend a hand at haymaking, at the harvest; at sheep-shearing, at the cider press, at hoeing, when I’m tired of my own company. ”

“ Here and there new arches of rustic woodwork, in horrible designs, stretch over the paths, their ugliness partly hidden by climbing Roses of the Seven Sisters kind, or Clematis, or Honeysuckle, or Jasmine. Many trees in the garden are old enough to exchange memories of a hundred years ago; the orchard alone boasts a venerable congregation of old trees, some grey with lichen, some bowed down with the result of full crops.
New ghosts walk the garden paths in crinolines and Leghorn hats, and side curls, talking to gentlemen with glossy side whiskers, peg-top trousers, and tartan waistcoats. ”