Wherever American homes are assembled we may have, all winter, for the
asking--if we will but ask ourselves instead of the lawn-mower man--an
effect of home, of comfort, cheer and grace, of summer and autumn
reminiscences and of spring's anticipations, immeasurably better than
any ordinary eye or fancy can extort from the rectangular and
stiffened-out nakedness of unplanted boundaries; immeasurably better
than the month-by-month daily death-stare of shroud-like snow around
houses standing barefooted on the frozen ground. It may be by hearty
choice that we abide where we must forego outdoor roses in Christmas
week and broad-leaved evergreens blooming at New Year's, Twelfth-night
or Carnival. Well and good! But we can have even in mid-January, and
ought to allow ourselves, the lawn-garden's surviving form and tranced
life rather than the shrubless lawn's unmarked grave flattened beneath
the void of the snow. We ought to retain the sleeping beauty of the
ordered garden's unlost configuration, with the warm house for its
bosom, with all its remoter contours--alleys, bays, bushy networks
and sky-line--keeping a winter share of their feminine grace and
softness. We ought to retain the "frozen music" of its myriad gray, red
and yellow stems and twigs and lingering blue and scarlet berries
stirring, though leaflessly, for the kiss of spring.
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