ard resembling
a wood, which, being near the cell of the sick, lightens the
infirmities of the brethren with no moderate solace, while
it affords a spacious walking place to those who walk and a
sweet place for reclining to those who are overheated. Where
the orchard terminates the garden begins. Here also a
beautiful spectacle is exhibited to the infirm brethren:
while they sit upon the green margin of the huge basin, they
see the little fishes playing under the water and
representing a military encounter by swimming to meet each
other.

This warlike note seems strange and almost discordant in the midst of
the peace of the cloister; but many, before seeking shelter there, had
been doughty knights, and St. Bernard, man of the world as he was,
would realise that even this mimic warfare might bring diversion to
their tranquil seclusion.

What a contrast to all this joy in the Middle Ages in gardens and
flowers are the sober reflections of Marcus Aurelius! Philosopher as
he was, he would have us learn from plants the lesson of cause and
effect, the continuity of life. He says:

The destruction of one thing is the making of another; and
that which subsists at present is, as it were, the seed of
succession, which springs from it. But if you take seed in
the common notion, and confine it to the field or the
garden, you have a dull fancy.

It is with a sense of relief that we turn from the thoughts which a
garden suggests to this stoic, to those not less profound, though
perhaps more simple, of a Chinese writer of the fourth century:

Ah, how short a time it is that we are here! Why then not
set our hearts at rest, ceasing to trouble whether we remain
or go? What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious
thoughts? Let me stroll through the bright hours as they
pass in my garden among my flowers.

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

End of Project Gutenberg's Of Six Mediaeval Women, by Alice Kemp-Welch

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