Only in such a case does the
sun-dial belong to the good morals of gardening. But maybe this is an
overstrict rule for the majority of us who are much too fond of
embellishments and display--the rouge and powder of high art.
On the other hand, we go to quite as much pains to say that though a
garden may not lie nor steal, it may have its concealments; they are as
right as they are valuable. One of the first steps in the making of a
garden should be to determine what to hide and how most gracefully to
hide it. A garden is a house's garments, its fig-leaves, as we may say,
and the garden's concealments, like its revelations, ought always to be
in the interest of comfort, dignity, and charm.
We once had a very bumptious member on our board of judges. "My dear
madam!" he exclaimed to an aspirant for the prizes, the underpinning of
whose dwelling stood out unconcealed by any sprig of floral growth,
"your house is barefooted! Nobody wants to see your house's
underpinning, any more than he wants to see your own!"
It is not good to be so brusque about non-penitentiary offences, but
skilful and lovely concealments in gardening were his hobby. To another
he whispered, "My dear sir, tell your pretty house her petticoat shows!"
and to yet another, "Take all those shrubs out of the middle of your
lawn and 'plant out' with them every feature of your house which would
be of no interest to you if the house were not yours.
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