It would seem to be a law that the purest and truest human pleasure in a
garden is attained by means whose ratio is exactly inverse to the scale
or degree of the garden’s magnificence. The design, for instance, of a
Versailles impresses one with a sense of ostentatious consciousness of
magnitude; out of scale with living men and women; whose lives could
only be adapted to it, as we know they were, by an existence full of
artificial restraints and discomforts; the painful and arbitrarily
imposed conditions of a tyrannical and galling etiquette.
So we think also of our greatest gardens, such as Chatsworth. It is
visited by a large number of people who go to see it as a large
expensive place to gape at, but surely not for the truest love of a
garden. So it is with many a large place; the size and grandeur of the
garden may suit the great house as a design; it may be imposing and
costly, it may be beautifully kept, and yet it may lack all the
qualities that are needed for simple pleasure and refreshment. It is not
till we come to some old garden of moderate size that has always been
cherished and has never been radically altered, that the true message of
the garden can be received and read; and it is from thence downward in
the scale of grandeur that we find those gardens that are the happiest
and best of all for true delight and close companionship; the simple
borders of hardy flowers, planted and tended with constant watchfulness
and loving care by the owner’s own hands.
Such a garden is this of Mr. Elgood’s; in a midland county, and on a
strong soil that throws up good hardy plants in vigorous luxuriance.
Here grow the great Orange Lilies--the Herring Lilies of
[Illustration: RAMSCLIFFE: ORANGE LILIES & MONKSHOOD