running up between
them; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificent
bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts,
breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of the
buildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort of
rustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted from the flower-beds
by a row of geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room.

I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with
the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting
up our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as
thick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven,
intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we
may guess that there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I
know nothing so pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower,
with the eye resting on that bright piece of colour, lighted so
gloriously by the evening sun, now catching a glimpse of the little
birds as they fly rapidly in and out of their nests--for there are
always two or three birds'-nests in the thick tapestry of
cherry-trees, honeysuckles, and china-roses, which covers our
walls--now tracing the gay gambols of the common butterflies as they
sport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer moth, which the
country people, fertile in pretty names, call the bee-bird;[27] that
bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days over the sweetest
flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small tube of the
jessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossom of the geranium,
whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast: that
insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest;
always, even when feeding, self-poised and self-supported, and whose
wings, in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so
lulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid that mixture
of rich flowers and leaves, watching the bee-bird! Nothing so pretty
to look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only unluckily it
resembles a picture in more qualities than one--it is fit for nothing
but to look at. One might as well think of walking in a bit of framed
canvas. There are walks, to be sure--tiny paths of smooth gravel, by
courtesy called such--but they are so overhung by roses and lilies,
and such gay encroachers--so overrun by convolvulus, and heart's-ease,
and mignon