This done, determine between whom and whom you
will seat it; between what and what you will plant it, that is, so as to
"draw it out," as we say of diffident or reticent persons; or to use it
for drawing out others of less social address. But how many a lovely
shrub has arrived where it was urgently invited, and found that its host
or hostess, or both, had actually forgotten its name! Did not know how
to introduce it to any fellow guest, or whether it loved sun or shade,
loam, peat, clay, leaf-mould or sand, wetness or dryness; and yet should
have found all that out in the proper blue-book (horticultural
dictionary) before inviting the poor mortified guest at all.
"Oh, pray be seated--anywhere. Plant yourself alone in the middle. This
is Liberty Garden."
"It is no such thing," says the tear-bedewed beauty to herself; "it's
Anarchy Garden." Yet, like the lady she is, she stays where she is put,
and gets along surprisingly well.
New England calls Northampton one of her most beautiful towns. But its
beauty lies in the natural landscape in and around it, in the rise,
fall, and swing of the seat on which it sits, the graceful curving of
its streets, the noble spread of its great elms and maples, the green
and blue openness of grounds everywhere about its modest homes and its
highly picturesque outlook upon distant hills and mountains and
intervening meadows and fields, with the Connecticut winding through.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77