catalogue calls the “dwarf habit.” It is essentially among the
miniatures. Though it may be as extensive as one pleases to make it, yet
it gains rather than loses when treated as its trees are by the skilful
hands of the miniaturist. Without suggesting that it should be reduced
to toy dimensions, yet I am sure that it should be so that no tall human
being should be seen in it. It is the garden of a small race. A big
Englishman should not be allowed into it. It would not be giving it fair
play.
Fancying that I have put its elements into a nutshell, carrying my
minimising to a minimum, I repeat the last sentence to Dorothy.
“You would not exclude Mr. Friswell,” said she.
“Atheist Friswell is not life-size: he may go without rebuke into the
most miniature Japanese garden in Bond Street,” I reply gratefully.
“And how about Mrs. Friswell?” she asks.
“She is three sizes too big, even in her chapel shoes,” I replied.
Mrs. Friswell, in spite of her upbringing--perhaps on account of
it--wears the heelless shoes of Little Bethel.
“Then Mr. Friswell will never be seen in a Japanese garden,” said
Dorothy.
She does like Mrs. Friswell.
[Illustration: 0130]
CHAPTER THE TENTH
But there is in my mind one garden In which I should like to see
the tallest and most truculent of Englishmen. It is the Tiergarten at
Berlin. I recollect very vividly the first time that I passed through
the Brandenburger Gate to visit some friends who occupied a flat in
the block of buildings known as “In den Zelten.” I had just come within
sight of the sentry at the gate-house when I saw him rush to the door of
the guard-room and in a few seconds the whole guard had turned out with
a trumpet and a drum. I was surprised, for I had not written to say that
I was coming, and I was quite unused to such courtesy either in Berlin
br any other city where there is a German population.
Before the incident went further I became aware of the fact that all the
vehicles leaving “Unter den Linden” had become motionless, and that the
officers who were in some of them were standing up at the salute. The
only carriage in motion was a landau drawn by a pair of gray horses,
with a handsome man in a plain uniform and the ordinary helmet of an
infantry soldier sitting alone with his face to the horses. I knew
him in a moment, though I had never seen him before--the Crown Prince
Frederick, the husband of our Princess Royal--the “Fritz” of the
intimate devotional telegrams to “Augusta” from the battlefields of
France in 1870.
That Crown Prince was the very opposite to his truculent son and
that contemptible blackguard, his son's son. Genial, considerate, and
unassuming, disliking all display and theatrical posing, he was much
more of an English gentleman than a German Prince. His son Wilhelm had
even then begun to hate him--so I heard from a high personage of the
Court.
I am certain that it was his reading of the campaign of 1870-1 that
set this precious Wilhelm--this Emperor of the penny gaff--on his last
enterprise. If one hunts up the old newspapers of 1870 one will read
in every telegram from the German front of the King of Prussia and the
Crown Prince marching to Victory, in the campaign started by a forgery
and a lie, by that fine type of German trickery, unscrupulousness,
brutality, and astuteness, Bismarck. Wilhelm could not endure the
thought of the glory of his house being centred in those who had gone
before him, and he chafed at the years that were passing without history
repeating itself. He could with difficulty restrain himself from his
attempt to dominate the world until his first-begotten was old enough to
dominate the demi-monde of Paris--“Wilhelm to-day successfully stormed
Le Chemin des Dames,” was the telegram that he sent to the Empress, in
imitation of those sent by his grandfather to his Augusta. _Le Chemin
des Dames!_--beyond a doubt his dream was to give France to his eldest,
England to his second, and Russia to the third of the litter. After
that, as he said to Mr. Gerard, he would turn his attention to America.
That was the dream of this Bonaparte done in German silver, and now his
house is left unto him desolate--unto him whose criminality, sustained
by the criminal conceit of his subjects, left thousands of houses
desolate for evermore.
But we are now in the Garden of Peace, whose sweet savour should not be
allowed to become rank by the mention of the name of the instigator of
the German butcheries.
There is little under my eyes in this garden to remind me of one on the
Rhine where I spent a summer a good many years ago. Its situation was
ideal. The island of legends, Nonnenworth, was all that could be seen
from one of the garden-houses; and one of the windows in the front
was arranged in small squares of glass stained, but retaining their
transparency, in various colours--crimson, pink, dark blue, ultramarine,
and two degrees yellow. Through these theatrical mediums we were
exhorted to view the romantic island, so that we had the rare chance
of seeing Nonnenworth bathed in blood, or in flames of fire. It was
undoubtedly a great privilege, but I only availed myself of it once;
though our host, who must have looked through those glasses thousands of
times, was always to be found gazing through the flaming yellow at the
unhappy isle.
From the vineyard nearer the house we had the finest view of the ruins
of the Drachenfels, and, on the other side of the Rhine, of Rolandseck.
Godesburg was farther away, but we used to drive through the lovely
avenue of cherry-trees and take the ferry to the hotel gardens where we
lunched.
Another of the features of the great garden of our villa was a fountain
whose chief charm was found in an arrangement by which, on treading on
a certain slab of stone at the invitation of our host, the uninitiated
were met by a deluging squirt of water.
This was the lighter side of hospitality; but it was at one time to be
found in many English gardens, one of the earliest being at our Henry's
Palace of Nonsuch.
In another well-built hut there was the apparatus of a game which is
popular aboard ship in the Tropics: I believe it is called Bull; it
is certainly an adaptation of the real bull. There is a framework of
apertures with a number painted on each, the object of the player being
to throw a metal disc resembling a quoit into the central opening.
Another hut had a pole in the middle and cords with a ring at the end of
each suspended from above, and the trick was to induce the ring to catch
on to a particular hook in a set arranged round the pole. These were the
games of exercise; but the intellectual visitors had for their diversion
an immense globe of silvered glass which stood on a short pillar and
enabled one to get in absurd perspective a reflection of the various
parts of the garden where it was placed. This toy is very popular in
some parts of France, and I have heard that about sixty years ago it was
to be found in many English gardens also. It is a great favourite in the
German _lustgarten_.
These are a few of the features of a private garden which may commend
themselves to some of my friends; but the least innocuous will never be
found within my castle walls. I would not think them worth mentioning
but for the fact that yesterday a visitor kept rubbing us all over with
sandpaper, so to speak, by talking enthusiastically about her visits to
Germany, and in the midst of the autumn calm in our garden, telling us
how beautifully her friend Von Rosche had arranged his grounds. She had
the impudence to point to one of the most impregnable of my “features,”
saying with a smile,--
“The Count would not approve of that, I'm afraid.”
“I am so glad,” said Dorothy sweetly. “If I thought that there was
anything here of which he would approve, I should put on my gardening
boots and trample it as much out of existence as our relations are with
those contemptible counts and all their race.”
And then, having found the range, I brought my heavy guns into action
and “the case began to spread.”
I trust that I made myself thoroughly offensive, and when I recall some
of the things I said, my conscience acquits me of any shortcomings in
this direction.
“You were very wise,” said Dorothy; “but I think you went too far when
you said. 'Good-bye, Miss Haldane.' I saw her wince at that.”
“I knew that I would never have a chance of speaking to her again,” I
replied.
“Oh, yes; but--Haldane--Haldane! If you had made it Snowden or MacDonald
it would not have been so bad; but Haldane!”
“I said Haldane because I meant Haldane, and because Haldane is a
synonym for colossal impudence--the impudence cf a police-court attorney
defending a prostitute with whom he was on terms of disgusting intimacy.
What a trick it was to leave the War Office, out of which he knew he
would be turned, and then cajole his friend Asquith into giving him
a peerage and the Seals, so that he might have his pension of five
thousand pounds a year for the rest of his natural life! If that is to
be condoned, all that I can say is that we must revise all our notions
of political pettifogging. I forget at the moment how many retired Lord
Chancellors there are who are pocketing their pension, but have done
nothing to earn it.”
“What, do you call voting through thick and thin with your party
nothing?”
“I don't. That is how, what we call a sovereign to-day is worth only nine
shillings, and a man who got thirty shillings a week as a gardener only
gets three pounds now: thirty shillings in 1913 was mere than three
pounds to-day. And in England----”
“Hush, hush. Remember, 'My country right or wrong.'”
“I do remember. That is why I rave. When my country, right or wrong is
painted out and 'my party, right or wrong' substituted, isn't it time
one raved?”
“You didn't talk in that strain when you wrote a leading article every
day for a newspaper.”
“I admit it; but--but--well, things hadn't come to a head in those old
days.”
“You mean that they had not come into your head, _mon vieux_, if you
will allow me to say so.”
I did allow her to say so--she had said so before asking my leave, which
on the whole I admit is a very good way of saying things.
To be really frank, I confess that I was very glad that the dialogue
ended here. I fancied the possibility of her having stored away in that
wonderful group of pigeon holes which she calls her memory, a memorandum
endorsed with the name of Campbell-Bannerman or a _dossier_ labelled
“Lansdowne.” For myself I recollect very well that a vote of the
representatives of the People had declared that Campbell-Bannerman
had left the country open to destruction by his failure to provide
an adequate supply of cordite. In the days of poor Admiral Byng such
negligence would have been quickly followed by an execution; but with
the politician it was followed by a visit to Buckingham Palace and a
decoration as a hero. When it was plain that Lord Lansdowne had made,
and was still making, a muddle of the South African War, he was promoted
to a more important post in the Government--namely, the Foreign Office.
With such precedents culled from the past, why should any one be
surprised to find the instigator of the Gallipoli gamble, whose
responsibility was proved by a Special Commission of Inquiry, awarded
the most important post next to that of the Prime Minister?
Yes, on the whole I was satisfied to accept my Dorothy's smiling rebuke
with a smile; and the sequel of the incident showed me that I was wise
in this respect; for I found her the next day looking with admiring eyes
at our Temple.
Our Temple was my masterpiece, and it was the “feature” which our
visitor had, without meaning it, commended so extravagantly when she had
assured us that her friend Count Von Bosche would not have approved of
it.
“I think, my child, now that I come to think of it, that your
single-sentence retort respecting the value of the Count's possible
non-approval was more effective than my tirade about the vulgarity of
German taste in German gardens, especially that one at Honnef-on-Rhine,
where I was jocularly deluged with Rhine water. You know how to hit off
such things. You are a born sniper.”
“Sniping is a woman's idea of war,” said Dorothy.
“I don't like to associate women and warfare,” said I shaking my head.
“That is because of your gentle nature, dear,” said she with all the
smoothness of a smoothing-iron fresh from a seven-times heated furnace.
“But isn't it strange that in most languages the word War is a noun
feminine?”
“They were always hard on woman in those days,” said I vaguely. “But
they're making up for it now.”
“What are you talking about?” she cried. “Why, they're harder than ever
on women in this country. Haven't they just insisted on enchaining them
with the franchise, with the prospect of seats in the House of Commons?
Oh, Woman--poor Woman!--poor, poor Woman--what have you done to deserve
this?”
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
The Temple is one of the “features” which began to grow with great
rapidity in connection with the House Garden. And here let me say that,
in my opinion, one of the most fascinating elements of the House Garden
is the way in which its character develops. To watch its development is
as interesting as to watch the growth of a dear child, only it is never
wilful, and the child is--sometimes. There is no wilfulness in the
floral part: as I have already explained, the “dwarf habit” of the stock
prevents all ramping and every form of rebellion: but it is different
with the “features.” I have found that every year brings its suggestions
of development in many directions, and surely this constitutes the main
attractiveness of working out any scheme of horticulture.
I have found that one never comes to an end in this respect; and I am
sure that this accounts for the great popularity of the House Garden,
in spite of its enemies having tried to abolish it by calling it Formal.
The time was when one felt it necessary to make excuses for it--Mr.
Robinson, one of the most eminent of its detractors, was, and still is,
I am happy to be able to say, the writer to whom we all apply for advice
in an emergency. He is Æsculapius living on the happiest terms with
Flora.
But when we who are her devotees wish to build a Temple for her worship,
we don't consult Æsculapius: he is a physician, not an architect, and
Mr. Robinson has been trying to convince us for over twenty years that
an architect is not the person to consult, for he knows nothing about
the matter. Æsculapius is on the side of Nature, we are told, and he
has been assuring us that the architect is not; but in spite of all its
opponents, the garden of form and finish is the garden of to-day. Every
one who wishes to have a garden worth talking about--a garden to look
out upon from a house asks for a garden of form and finish.
I am constantly feeing that I am protesting too much in its favour,
considering that it needs no apologist at this time of day, when, as I
have just said, opinion on its desirability is not divided, so I will
hasten to relieve myself of the charge of accusation by apology. Only
let me say that the beautiful illustrations to Mr. Robinson's volume
entitled _Garden Design and Architects' Gardens_--they are by Alfred
Parsons--go far, in my opinion, to prove exactly the opposite to what
they are designed to prove. We have pictures of stately houses and
of comparatively humble houses, in which we are shown the buildings
starting up straight out of the landscape, with a shaggy tree or group
of trees cutting off at a distance of only a few yards from the walls,
some of the most interesting architectural features; we have pictures of
mansions with a woodland behind them and a river flowing in front, and
of mansions in the very midst of trees, and looking at every one of them
we are conscious of that element of incongruity which takes away from
every sense of beauty. In fact, looking at the woodcuts, finely executed
as they are, we are forced to limit our observation to the architecture
of the houses only; for there is nothing else to observe. We feel as
if we were asked to admire an unfinished work--as if the owner of the
mansion had spent all his money on the building and so was compelled
to break off suddenly before the picture that he hoped to make of the
“place” was complete or approaching completeness.
Mr. Robinson's strongest objection is to “clipping.” He regards with
abhorrence what he calls after Horace Walpole, “vegetable sculpture.”
Well, last year, being in the neighbourhood of one of the houses which
he illustrates as an example of his “natural” style of gardening, I
thought I should take the opportunity of verifying his quotations.
I visited the place, but when I arrived at what I was told was the
entrance, I felt certain that I had been misdirected, for I found myself
looking through a wrought-iron gate at an avenue bounded on both sides
with some of the most magnificent clipped box hedges I had ever seen.
Within I was overwhelmed with the enormous masses treated in the same
way. It was not hedges they were, but walls--massive fortifications, ten
feet high and five thick, and all clipped I I never saw such examples of
topiary work. To stand among these _bêtes noires_ of Mr. Robinson
made one feel as if one were living among the mastodons and other
monstrosities of the early world: the smallest suggested both in form
and bulk the Jumbo of our youth--no doubt it had a trunk somewhere, but
it was completely hidden. The lawn--at the bottom of which, by the way,
there stood the most imposing garden-house I had ever seen outside
the grounds of Stowe--was divided geometrically by the awful bodies of
mastodons, mammoths, elephants, and hippopotamuses, the effect being
hauntingly Wilsonian, Wagnerian, and nightmarish, so that I was glad to
hurry away to where I caught a glimpse of some geometrical flower
beds, with patterns delightfully worked in shades of blue--Lord Roberts
heliotrope, ageratum, and verbena.
I asked the head-gardener, whom the war had limited to two assistants,
if he spent much time over the clipping, and he told me that it took two
trained men doing nothing else but clipping those walls for six weeks
out of every year!
From what Mr. Robinson has written one gathers that he regards the
clipping of trees as equal in enormity to the clipping of coins--perhaps
even more so. If that is the case, it is lucky for those topiarists that
he is not in the same position as Sir Charles Mathews.
And the foregoing is a faithful description of the “landscape”
around one of the houses illustrated in his book as an example of the
“naturalistic” style.
But perhaps Mr. Robinson's ideas have become modified, as those of the
owner of the house must have done during the twenty-five years that have
elapsed since the publication of his book, subjecting Mr. Blomfield
(as he was then) and Mr. Inigo Triggs to a criticism whose severity
resembles that of the _Quarterly Review_ of a hundred years ago, or the
_Saturday_ of our boyhood.
To return to my Temple, within whose portals I swear that I have said
my last word respecting the old battle of the styles, I look on its
erection as the first progeny of the matrimonial union of the house with
its garden. I have mentioned the mound encircled with flowering shrubs
at the termination of the lawn. I am unable to say what part was played
by this raised ground in the economy of the Norman Castle, but before
I had been looking at it for very long I perceived that it was clearly
meant to be the site of some building that, would be in keeping with the
design of the garden below it--some building in which one could sit and
obtain the full enjoyment of the floral beds which were now crying out
with melodious insistence for admiration.
The difficulty was to know in what form the building should be cast. I
reckoned that I had a free choice in this matter. The boundary wall of
the Castle is, of course, free from all architectural trammels. I could
afford to ignore it. If the Keep or the Barbican had been within sight,
my freedom in this respect would have been curtailed to the narrowest
limits: I should have been compelled to make the Norman or the Decorated
the style, for anything else would have seemed incongruous in close
proximity to a recognised type; but under the existing conditions I saw
that the attempt to carry out in this place the Norman tradition would
result in something that would seem as great a mockery as the sham
castle near Bath.
But I perceived that if I could not carry out the Norman tradition
I might adopt the eighteenth century tradition respecting a garden
building, and erect one of the classic temples that found favour with
the great garden makers of that period--something frankly artificial,
but eminently suggestive of the Italian taste which the designers had
acquired in Italy.
I have wondered if the erection of these classical buildings in English
gardens did not seem very incongruous and artificial when they were
first brought before the eyes of the patron; and the conclusion that I
have come to is that they seemed as suitable to an English home as did
the pure Greek façade of the mansion itself, the fact being that there
is no English style of architecture. Italy gave us the handsomest
style for our homes, and when people were everywhere met with classical
façades--when the Corinthian pillar with, perhaps, its modified Roman
entablature, was to be seen in every direction, the classical garden
temple was accepted as in perfect harmony with its surroundings. So the
regular couplets of Dryden, Pope, and a score of lesser versifiers were
acclaimed as the most natural and reasonable form for the expression
of their opinions. Thus I hold that, however unenterprising the garden
designers were in being content to copy Continental models instead of
inventing something as original as Keats in the matter of form, the
modern garden designer has only to copy in order to produce--well, a
copy of the formality of their time. But if people nowadays do not wish
their gardens to reflect the tastes of their ancestors for the classical
tradition, they will be very foolish if they do not adopt something
better--when they find it.
[Illustration: 0150]
Of course I am now still referring to the garden out of which the
house should spring. The moment that you get free from the compelling
influence of the house, you may go as you please; and to my mind you
will be as foolish if you do not do something quite different from the
House Garden as you would be if you were to do anything different within
sight of the overpowering House--almost as foolish as the people who
made a beautiful fountain garden and then flung it at the head of that
natural piece of water, the Serpentine.
My temple was to be in full view of the house, and I wished to maintain
the tradition of a certain period, so I drew out my plans accordingly. I
had space only for something about ten feet square, and I found out what
the simplest form of such a building would cost. It could be done in
stone for some hundreds of pounds, in deal for less than a fourth of
that sum.
Both estimates were from well-known people with all the facilities for
turning out good work at the lowest figure of profit; but both estimates
made me heavy-hearted. I tried to make up my mind not to spend the rest
of my life in the state of the Children of Israel when their Temple was
swept away; but within six months I had my vision restored, and unlike
the old people who wept because the restoration was far behind the
original in glory, I rejoiced; for, finding that I could not afford
to have the structure in deal, I had it built of marble, and the cost
worked out most satisfactorily. In marble it cost me about a fourth of
the estimate in deal!