and counter-attacks and the doom of
Emperors, who will remember that garden?

Saddest of all, as it seemed to me watching the garden paths, were
spiders' webs that had been spun across them, so grey and stout and
strong, fastened from weed to weed, with the spiders in their midst
sitting in obvious ownership. You knew then as you looked at those
webs across all the paths in the garden that any that you might fancy
walking the small paths still, were but grey ghosts gone from thence,
no more than dreams, hopes and imaginings, something altogether
weaker than spiders webs.

And the old wall of the garden that divides it from its neighbour, of
solid stone and brick, over fifteen feet high, it is that mighty old
wall that held the romance of the garden. I do not tell the tale of
that garden of Arras, for that is conjecture, and I only tell what I
saw, in order that someone perhaps in some far country may know what
happened in thousands and thousands of gardens because an Emperor
sighed, and longed for the splendour of war. The tale is but
conjecture, yet all the romance is there; for picture a wall over
fifteen feet high built as they built long ago, standing for all
those ages between two gardens. For would not the temptation arise to
peer over the wall if a young man heard, perhaps songs, one evening
the other side? And at first he would have some pretext and
afterwards none at all, and the pretext would vary wonderfully little
with the generations, while the ivy went on growing thicker and
thicker. The thought might come of climbing the wall altogether and
down the other side, and it might seem too daring and be utterly put
away. And then one day, some wonderful summer evening, the west all
red and a new moon in the sky, far voices heard clearly and white
mists rising, one wonderful summer day, back would come that thought
to climb the great old wall and go down the other side. Why not go in
next door from the street, you might say. That would be different,
that would be calling; that would mean ceremony, black hats, and
awkward new gloves, constrained talk and little scope for romance. It
would all be the fault of the wall.

With what diffidence, as the generations passed, would each first
peep over the wall be undertaken. In some years it would be scaled
from one side, in some ages from the other. What a barrier that old
red wall would have seemed! How new the adventure would have seemed
in each age to those that d