Lures of Life

f a child and for the first time a philosopher. Poetry and wisdom on every hand permeate the close of life, just as the oblique rays of the setting sun penetrate into the heart of the densest foli

s a song. Romance sketches wonderful pictures with such a beatific background to inspire it, and imagination wanders into a carnival of dreams. How many pleasant thoughts a

influence almost human that holds us up and tantalizes. Vague ancestral memories of old families flash upon the mind; for more than four hundred years men and women have walked and talked and thought in this Tuscan garden of mine, and tended its flowers and enjoyed its tranquillity. Children have played in it, often going to

hunter's moon frightens them away--by watching these things methodically and silently accomplishing their allotted tasks, I have come to think about myself with brave resolution and resigned conformity to natural laws. I grieve less over myself when I regard the change w

the armful, the basketful. She decorated the rooms with flowers, filled glass bowls and bronze vases with flowers, and her art touched its zenith in glorifying

e and showed her the sights of the Eternal City, but Bond Street and Regent Street interested her more than St. Peter's and the Coliseum. We visited the Forum with its ruined temples and triumphal arches, and trod the Via

ut of it. "Yes," I replied, "you saw the Forum; that is where you picked the violets." The Forum to her was deadly dull and forgotten even by name

them whoever may sing their praise. It is a question of temperament. The heart is not dull if the head is triste. Every eye makes its own beauty and every heart forms its own kinships. Put me in front of a post-impressionist picture and dulness covers me like a fun

the portrait of a man should be drawn like a peculiarly shaped market-garden divided into plots for growing vegetables. Nor can I explain why the picture of a village street should look like a fortnight's wash suspended in a cherry orchard, and the policeman standing in front of the village inn at the corner should look like a laundry-maid hanging out the clothes. It requires uncommon genius to work the illusion successfully, and to start an indolent British public frivolling with the captivating puzzle. But it leaves me cold and passionless, for I am slow of understanding these things. They say an impressionist picture of top-note character is a painfully excitin

h more about the future than about the past. Why should artists bother about the fate of humanity? If art does not justify itself, ?sthetic rapture does.... Rapture suffices. The artist has no more call to look

m one month to another throughout the gardener's calendar by endless enticements which keep the interest gently simmering. The procession of gay flowers that promenade the sheltered borders and disport themselves with flagrant

you become candidate for possession of this useful garden requisite, a wooden back with an iron hinge to it, or the neatest imitation offered on the market. In the garden you get in touch with Nature, breathe fresh air, cultivate a contented mind, and n

elong day in the open. This lowly service offers immediate reward; it begets a healthy appetite at meal-times, and develops a

ingers as he works along the border that grieve him. Weeding is a fascinating occupation to me. Nice people won't profane their hands grubbing in common garden soil, but, being a groundling myself, I enjoy the fun of coming into contact with my native element. Clean, sweet, caressing earth, it is the last flowery coverlet all of us will sleep under; why shun thy friendly touch to-day? There is always an abundant crop of weeds to practise on in an Itali

festival of the year. He invites his horticultural cronies to tea on the lawn, and they all talk rose jargon together. He takes them on a tour of inspection round the garden, and they congratulate the founder of the feast of flowers. They are happy as a band of Sunday-school children spending the afternoon out. They sit on the lawn under the spreading ilex-tree, which casts ample shadow for their comfort, and the summer sunshine lays ardent on the green-sward around them. It is a genial gathering, but the man who understands not

ith a grip which cannot be shaken off: I mean the writer's lure. I am fond of reading. The enticements of a good book

a beautiful sympathetic picture holds you up by its witchery of art. In the picture warmth of colour, grace of line, melting tints, dreamy distance, and an added mystic charm brooding over all, voice lovingly your taste in art, and, like a haunted man, you carry the landscape about with you all day long. It intrudes on your mind midst pressing business a

the language ripples musically as a chime of bells, and you repeat the sentence to yourself again and again. The aptness of an image is lifelike, and a vision floats across your mind; the happy turn of a sentence sticks. The fresh, clear-cut thought shot out boldly from the writer's brain conveys a new idea; you recall the touch

ot a question of conforming to correct standards of good writing by which literary excellence is judged, the writer being blessed or cursed by the censors according to the measure of his allegiance to their literary creed. Some writers violate every literary canon set up to guide their pen in the way of righteousness, but they are alive with literary

is an oracle of occult information and prevision almost uncanny, concerning things in the garden and out of it. However, he is a cheerf

moon according to his garden lore, which is old as his pagan ancestors. If you prune rose-trees in a waxing moon the new growths will be long, weak shoots, and the crop of roses in the summer poor, puny things. Prune in the waning moon and the new growths will be short, sturd

s. Bulbs and potatoes may be planted any time. They move in the spring when Nature sign

uit. "Ah!" said Emilio, "now that you see the difference in the two crops, you must believe me. Their diospyros were gathered in the growing moon, and they shrivel and lose colour and flavour; ours were gathered in the waning moon, and keep beautiful and sound to the end of the season." There is good luck under the waning moon. Another explanation of the diffe

the pathway. The seat has no florid decorative carving on it to arouse hostility or provoke criticism. It is just a plain seat of simple Roman type, roomy and comfortable to sit on. Behind the seat curves a semicircle of thirteen cypress-trees screening the north winds. Again, behind the cypress-trees is an interesting old stone wall a

d silvery-grey, and elsewhere the tinted lichen mottle it with saffron and orange and brown, and every delectable shade and tone which Time, the great decorator, with loving hand, imparts to old stone. It looks warm and gay and friendly, and grows a rock-garden of its own, for wild flowers bloom in its cracks and crannies and red valerian flames upon its heights, side by side with golden broom. Ivy clothes it in parts, and most mysteriously

up her Ladyship's sheltered image in the little vaulted temple on the wall as guardian of the crops, hoping that fat harvest would follow his devotion to Our Lady of Plenty. The vacant shrine is desolate and crumbling and mossy now, and so is the sentimental faith of those ancient days. It was a hal

agement, and brings the Heavenly Father in close touch with His earthly family; but the dear God's blessing is