Joyous Gard

“ Garden for ten-year results and get them for next to nothing, and at the same time you may quicken speed whenever your exchequer smiles broadly enough. Of course this argument is chiefly for those who have the time and not the money; for by time we mean play time, time which is money lost if you don't play. The garden that gives the most joy, "Joyous Gard," as Sir Launcelot named his, is not to be bought, like a Circassian slave; it must be brought up, like a daughter. How much of life they can miss who can buy whatever they want whenever they want it! ”

“ And Sir Launcelot and his brother Sir Ector stood upon the parapet of the castle of Joyous Gard, and they looked out upon the hills and upon the multitude of the hosts that were there foregathered and that encompassed them. And when Sir Ector beheld the vast and limitless extent of that army, his heart failed within him and he said to Sir Launcelot, “Behold, oh brother! the vast and limitless host that surrounds us. However shall we withstand such a host as that? Would it not be better to compromise with the King and to surrender the Queen to him?” ”

“ But as thou now hast quitted it, so mayst thou not return to it again. For so wouldst thou strive to walk backward into that which hath passed. No man may do that in the life which he leads.
“As for the anger of the Queen, soon will she forget that anger, and as soon as she forgets it, then will she desire to see thee again. For so hath she done several times before, and so will she do again.”
Said Sir Launcelot, “I will go to my castle of Joyous Gard and there will I abide until her anger against me hath grown cold again.” ”

“ Be prosperous; and what reck if it arose Out of some pebble with the stream at strife, Or that the light wind dallied with the boughs? Thou art successful.—Such is human life! —Thomas Doubleday. A VISION OF JOYOUS-GARDE. “And so sir Launcelot brought sir Tristan and La Beate Isoud unto Joyous-gard, the which was his owne castle that hee had wonne with his owne hands.”—Malory. “Bamburgh ... the great rock-fortress that was known to the Celts as Dinguardi, and was to figure in Arthurian romance as Joyous Garde ... “—C.J. Bates (History of Northumberland) . ”

“ On the hillside grow many sweet-smelling aromatic plants, and they tempt one to linger that one may bruise the leaves and so enjoy the fresh wholesomeness of the perfume. Below, at a dizzy distance, runs the Gard, the shores rich with woods over which now is a sort of mysterious bloom that seems in perfect keeping with the unseen Enchanted Castle filled with 218 exquisite works of art from all the quarters of the globe, that hides somewhere among the foliage a little lower down the stream.
Ascending to the level of the aqueduct one sees traces of its route over the hill on the way to Nimes. ”

“ The “Pont du Gard,” which was one of Agrippa’s greatest engineering feats, remains the most colossal Roman monument in France. Remoulins, the little village that lies nearest to the bridge, is easily reached by train either from Nîmes or Avignon, and the road along the banks of the Gard is full of rural charm, for it passes vineyards, homesteads, ploughed fields, and green pastures. Great steep hills rising up on either side of the river enclose the valley, and when one suddenly catches sight of the towering masonry of the aqueduct that spans the river the sensations aroused are bewildering. ”

“ The need of haste was increasing every second, and Gard worked breathlessly, now, till at last he could touch his fellow, lying there.
Still marking time with his feet upon the sand, he slipped from his own waist the riata he always carried when he came down to the plain. He had made it himself of finely braided hide, suppled and wrought with faithful care, and he knew its strength. Working fast, he raised the man’s shoulders, ever so little, and slipped the rope beneath his arms. ”

“ Scrambling down by chance steep pathways among the shrubs—losing my way more than once by following tracks that led to the edge of some miniature precipice—I found myself wondering, in the foolish, insistent way that one does wonder about trivial things, whether our tourist friend had managed to feel as disappointed as he had expected he would be with the Pont du Gard.
It looked absolutely sublime as one retreated from it on the homeward way; its towering arches rearing themselves tier above tier, like some dauntless human life lived steadily for a great purpose. ”

“ JUST off the coast road from Toulon to Hyères is the tiny town of La Garde. The commune boasts of twenty-five hundred inhabitants, most of whom evidently live in hillside dwellings, for the town proper has but a few hundreds, a very few, judging from its somnolence and lack of life. More country than town, the district abounds in lovely sweeps of landscape. Pradet, another little village, lies toward the coast, and, amid the dull grays of the olive-trees, gleams the white tower of a chapel which belongs to the modern château. ”

“ They know it so well, even without having seen it; the little, old-world village at the foot of the long, steep, bank-like hill, or Hanger, clothed to its summit with beech-wood as with a green cloud; the straggling street, the Plestor, or village green, an old tree in the centre, with a bench surrounding its trunk for the elders to rest on of a summer evening. And, close by, the grey immemorial church, with its churchyard, its grand old yew-tree, and, overhead, the bunch of swifts, rushing with jubilant screams round the square tower. ”

“ It happened once in a northern county that I found myself at a farmer’s fireside, and in company which the four winds of heaven seemed to have blown together. The farmer was a joyous old man; and the evening, a wintry one, and wild with wind and snow, flew away with jest and mirth and tale and song. Our entertainer had no wish that our joy should subside ”

“ It is undeniable that The Rhyme of Joyous Garde represents the summit of Gordon’s poetic achievement. And the reason is that it brings together in complete harmony the two spirits which alternately strove for mastery in the life of the man. ”

“ Joy thought how much better a cottage was, with just enough to meet the wants of life, than a mansion full of hirelings; and she said, hopefully, "Our blessings ever outnumber our woes. If we but look for them, we shall be surprised each day to see how many they are. I am on a visit to earth," continued Joy, "to see how much real happiness I can find, and help, if possible, to remove obstacles that hinder its advancement. This is my sister, Sorrow," she continued, turning to her, "who, like myself, has a mission, though by no means a pleasant one." ”

“ Now, in Provence, at the time when Félix lived, no one had ever heard of such a thing as a Christmas tree; but in its stead every cottage had a “crèche”; that is, in one corner of the great living-room, the room of the fireplace, the peasant children and their fathers and mothers built upon a table a mimic village of Bethlehem, with houses and people and animals, and, above all, with the manger, where the Christ Child lay. ”

“ Luckily for the girls, the next few days were so crowded with preparations for the trip to Wild Rose Lodge that they had not much time to dwell on the poor old professor and his misfortunes.
Only at night would they sometimes dream queer dreams in which wild-eyed men went around smashing everything in sight and a little cottage stood lonely and desolate and ghostlike amid a silent forest of trees. ”

“ There surely grew the balm of sweet content, of satisfaction, of peace. Poor Judith! For her the real content lay in a green valley, far, far below these perilous peaks upon which she tottered; whereon no woman may safely stand, it seems, without a stronger soul beside her to sustain in time of need. Her happiness lay in a valley where love springs and happiness flows in streams about the feet, and as she aspired higher and higher, and rose farther and farther into the rarefied air which solitary success breathes, she left the Happy Valley farther and farther behind. ”

“ That night Gardiston House was left to itself in the forest stillness. "I am glad that bugle is silenced for ever," said Gardis.
"And yet it was a silvern sound," said Cousin Copeland.
The rains began, and there was no more walking abroad; the excitement of the summer and the camp gone, in its place came the old cares which had been half forgotten. (Care always waits for a cold or a rainy day.) Could the little household manage to live—live with their meager comforts—until the next payment of rent came in? ”

“ The writer believed that he had gone to Arizona for the winter. He was thought to be somewhere on a ranch in the neighborhood of the Navajo reservation. Gard read that with a little feeling of dismay. He did not care to go up there. He had grown confident that he was not likely to be recognized; but still, there was danger, and he 217wanted to keep clear of complications until such time as he was ready to act for himself. If anything should happen to him he had no one to take up his work on the outside. He must find someone whom he could trust.
Suddenly he bethought himself of Sandy Larch. ”

“ Gard felt quite sure that he preferred to ride, and Anderson gave it as his opinion that that was the best way to travel.
“Better ’n railroad trains, or automobiles,” he declared, and quoted, as a clincher to his opinion, 192“‘A good man on a good horse is nobody’s slave.’”
Gard had been at the rancho five days; five wonderful days, they were to him, and he felt that he dared not stay another hour. The cattleman had not been able to help him much, on the business that had been his errand to the Palo Verde. ”

“ She wanted the sleepy quiet pastoral days to last always. Trouble between the Mormons and the Gentiles of the community would make her unhappy. She was Mormon-born, and she was a friend to poor and unfortunate Gentiles. She wished only to go on doing good and being happy. And she thought of what that great ranch meant to her. She loved it all—the grove of cottonwoods, the old stone house, the amber-tinted water, and the droves of shaggy, dusty horses and mustangs, the sleek, clean-limbed, blooded racers, and the browsing herds of cattle and the lean, sun-browned riders of the sage. ”

“ The smell of cedar came from the open door, and all was as fresh and clean as the breath of the forest from which everything came—a home that had been the girl's lifelong dream. The Goddess of Happy Valley had her own little temple at last.
On the open-air sleeping-porch they sat that night alone.
“I'm going to help raise some money for that Mission down there,” said Doctor Jim. “I don't know where any more good is being done, and I don't know any people who are more worth being helped than—your people.” ”

“ On quitting the forest the track was now and then diversified by the ruins of a solitary cottage, or the mouldering remains of a crucifix, raised by pious hands to mark some event, or to guide the traveller; and after traversing a rocky plain, covered with heath and wild thyme, where some herds of sheep and goats were browsing, attended by the shepherd, we entered the Forest of Bellegarde. This forest spreads over a large extent of country, and is so dark and intricate, that those best acquainted with it frequently lose their way. ”

“ Garda rose to her knees. "Oh, don't call me Miss Thorne," she said, pleadingly, putting her arms round her companion. "I love you so much—please never say it again."
"Very well. I will call you Garda."
"I like it when you are cold like that—oh, I like it!" said Garda, with enthusiasm. "All you say when I tell you I adore you is, 'Very well; I will call you Garda;' you do not even say 'my dear.' That is beautiful, because you really mean it; you mean nothing more, and you say nothing more."
"Do you praise me simply because I speak the truth?" said Margaret.
"Yes; for nothing is more rare. ”

“ Margaret had often admired it in her trips to and from the camp, and Gardley thought of it at once when it became possible for him to think of purchasing a home in the West.
There was a great stone fireplace, and the beams of the ceilings and pillars of the porch and wide, hospitable rooms were of tree-trunks with the bark on them. With a little work it could be made roughly but artistically habitable. ”

“ The thousand and more acres of the Upper Hanyards, sweet meadows stretching a mile along the river and a snatch of the chase at its wildest and loveliest, the prize that had fallen to the rascal earl in the great lawsuit, had been promised me as readily as a pinch of snuff. I gloated over the revenge I was winning for my race, a race rooted in those darling Hanyards a century before the Ridgeleys were heard of, for the first earl, the grandfather of the old rogue, started as an obscure pimp to Charles the Second, and was enriched and ennobled for his assiduity. ”

“ Give a man the sure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden." The italics are my own. When will Arthur Young have his tablet in Westminster Abbey, I wonder?
The department of the Gard offers an anomaly of the greatest historic interest. Here and here only throughout the length and breadth of France villages are found without a Catholic church, communities that have held fast to Protestantism and the right of private judgment from generation to generation during hundreds of years. ”

“ Matters stood thus, when the town was electrified by a general invitation to the annual jubilee at Jollyboys Hall, which this spring flowered into a masquerade, and filled the souls of old and young with visions of splendor, frolic, and fun. Being an amiable old town, it gave itself up, like a kind grandma, to the wishes of its children, let them put its knitting away, disturb its naps, keep its hands busy with vanities of the flesh, and its mind in a state of chaos for three mortal weeks. ”