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137
The Solitary Summer
·
Elizabeth Von Arnim
39
A
century
ago
a
man
lived
here
who
loved
his
garden.
He
loved,
however,
in
his
younger
years,
travelling
as
well,
but
in
his
travels
did
not
forget
this
little
corner
of
the
earth
belonging
to
him,
and
brought
back
the
seeds
of
many
strange
trees
such
as
had
never
been
seen
in
these
parts
before,
and
tried
experiments
with
them
in
the
uncongenial
soil,
and
though
many
perished,
a
few
took
hold,
and
grew,
and
flourished,
and
shade
me
now
at
tea-time.
What
flowers
he
had,
and
how
he
arranged
his
beds,
no
one
knows,
except
that
the
eleven
beds
round
the
sun-dial
were
put
there
by
him;
and
of
one
thing
he
seems
to
have
been
inordinately
fond,
and
that
was
lilac.
We
have
to
thank
him
for
the
surprising
beauty
of
the
garden
in
May
and
early
June,
for
he
it
was
who
planted
the
great
groups
of
it,
and
the
banks
of
it,
and
massed
it
between
the
pines
and
firs.
Wherever
a
lilac
bush
could
go
a
lilac
bush
went;
and
not
common
sorts,
but
a
variety
of
good
sorts,
white,
and
purple,
and
pink,
and
mauve,
and
he
must
have
planted
it
with
special
care
and
discrimination,
for
it
grows
here
as
nothing
else
will,
and
keeps
his
memory,
in
my
heart
at
least,
for
ever
gratefully
green.
On
the
wall
behind
our
pew
in
church
there
is
his
monument,
he
having
died
here
full
of
years,
in
the
peace
that
attends
the
last
hours
of
a
good
man
who
has
loved
his
garden;
and
to
the
long
Latin
praises
of
his
virtues
and
eminence
I
add,
as
I
pass
beneath
it
on
Sundays,
a
heartiest
Amen.
Who
would
not
join
in
the
praises
of
a
man
to
whom
you
owe
your
lilacs,
and
your
Spanish
chestnuts,
and
your
tulip
trees,
and
your
pyramid
oaks?
"He
was
a
good
man,
for
he
loved
his
garden"--that
is
the
epitaph
I
would
have
put
on
his
monument,
because
it
gives
one
a
far
clearer
sense
of
his
goodness
and
explains
it
better
than
any
amount
of
sonorous
Latinities.
How
could
he
be
anything
but
good
since
he
loved
a
garden--that
divine
filter
that
filters
all
the
grossness
out
of
us,
and
leaves
us,
each
time
we
have
been
in
it,
clearer,
and
purer,
and
more
harmless?
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