C. D. W.

She who would nowadays be modish, it is necessary that she should cease to be a house-wife, and become a garden-wife. Socially speaking, there is a world of difference between the two, all the difference between being in the fashion and out of it.

The house-wife is a social incubus, the garden-wife a social success.

For generations the house-wife was a power in the land. People respected her, tolerated her, bore with her and were bored by her. Then suddenly she found herself deposed, treated with yawns and contumely, she and her conversation relegated to the background, and her throne usurped and occupied by the garden-wife, to whose flowery words everyone now listened with flattering smiles and with keenest and most courteous interest.

Another case of la reine est morte, vire la reine; the only point to be ar

rived at is to discover wherein the social ruler of to-day differs from her predecessor of yesterday.

A certain cynic was heard to assert, not long ago, that there was no difference; that the only change was one of topic, the same woman migrating from the inside of her house to the outside, as did Mrs. Primrose from the blue bed to the brown; and the same cynic ventured to assert that herein lies little social gain to the listener, who is just as likely to be bored in the long run by one subject as by the other. But then, as everyone knows, a cynic is literally a dog, and oftentimes a dull one at that.

Where lives the man who would seriously maintain that it is not more interesting to listen for a whole dinner to a fair neighbor speaking her views on the value of various kinds of artificial manures, rather than listen, as

he would have had to in the old days,

to a homily on the rival claims to economical consideration of the brisket and the silverside?

The garden-wife scorns domesticity in its ordinary aspects, but she adores her garden. Where her predecessor spoke of the butcher's price-list and the cost of joints, she will talk of the rose-grower's catalogue and the price of bulbs, and, scorning the scullery, she will linger tenderly over the amenities of the potting shed.

Never will she dream of talking of the delinquencies and vagaries of her hand-maidens-albeit the mere bond of a common humanity gives them a certain claim upon the interest of their fellow creatures-but for long hours, with a show of deepest interest, will she prate of the lovely fancies and features of her flowers, till almost one begins to think there may be a certain truth in the cynic's contention that it may be just as possible to be a bore when talking about gardeners as when talking about cooks, and that she who vapors about her garden may be quite as poor company as she who erstwhile vaunted herself in public over the details of her kitchen, though it is but fair to add that no such reactionary idea as this seems yet to have dawned upon a patient and a listening world.

Indeed, so secure in her social position is the garden-wife at this moment, that it were positively socially unsafe even to hazard the suggestion that the house-wife of the last generation and the garden-wife of to-day are in reality mother and daughter, bores. To be chained to a stake set in the midst of a heap of burning weeds, and be prodded to death by an infuriated crowd of garden-wives armed with expensive spuds and fancy garden tools, would assuredly be the fate of such a rash social iconoclast!

Far more discreet, ay and more poetical, is it for the Searcher after truth

to suggest that the present transformation of house-wives into garden-wives is only a beautiful example of atavism, an admirable throw-back to the ideal days of the Garden of Eden. No one will deny that Eve was pre-eminently a garden-wife in every sense of the word, and that had she lived to-day she would have found no difficulty in adapting her conversation to the topic of the moment. Hence is not the chain of evidence complete?

But did she, one wonders, ever identify herself with her Eden quite so entirely as does her fashionable descendant of to-day with her beloved garden, losing in it her very individuality?

Did she ever speak gravely and ambiguously to the serpent in the words used by a garden-wife of the present day to a neighboring bishop, she thinking quite innocently of her garden, he imagining that she referred to herself:

"Do come and see me one afternoon this week, for I'm really looking absolutely beautiful, and at this time of year one never knows, next week I may be quite knocked to pieces and ruined!"

And when the bishop-or the serpent -looked somewhat embarrassed and confused, did Eve merely think him rude, and, turning to her Adam lately returned from fighting boars, try to turn the subject by telling him, with tears in her voice, that she was simply wretched because she was quite eaten up with green fly!

Truly the study of the garden-wife for bishops, for serpents, and for Adams, has since those old Eden days been a life's work in itself. . . .

One great difference between Eve and the garden-wife of to-day is that Eve had no library, only stray leaves. The modern garden-wife has a literature of her own. Some people even aver that it created her. But this is a moot point which must be dealt with

by future anthropologists. The fact remains that she is at this moment a power in the book-buying world, and that the author who would write a book running to several editions has but to add another one to the line of single volumes bound in white vellum, dainty, wonderful, which to-day fill the bookshelves of every true daughter of Eve who has come into her heritage of a garden.

This is a fact which no author or publisher with an eye to business should overlook.

The book must be made according to a certain accepted formula. It may not deal with serpents, though worms and their habits may be freely discussed (Eve preferred serpents).

Its personal apearnce is as important as that of a girl at her first ball. White trimmed with gold is the most satisfactory; but the chief thing to aim at is that it should be as dainty and delicate as possible, and thoroughly unsuitable to be handled and referred to by gardeners with earth-stained hands. As a suggestion for some future volume, it might give it a pseudo-realistic appearance, without detracting from its daintiness, if the book-marker were made of a piece of bass and the book tied together with dainty bows of the same. The book must be pre-eminently suitable for a present, and it is well that it be published in the autumn season when Christmas is near. Its sale and success is then a matter of certainty.

As to its contents, they are a secondary matter. The chief thing to aim at is the creation of a book which shall be neither heavy, nor scientific, nor above all practical. It is far better that the author have not more than an elementary knowledge of gardening, otherwise he will be in danger of drifting into technical and therefore boring details which it should be his main object to avoid. What he must strive

for, is so to treat his subject that it shall prove attractive to the habitual reader of novels, remembering always that the garden-wife as a rule has been brought up on novels, and the abrupt drop from fiction to a mere gardening manual might prove too jarring for her literary nerves and even necessitate a rest cure from all printed matter.

The garden-wife demands a book which shall exquisitely combine fact and fancy, and what more charming and natural combination than Love and Flowers? The book almost writes itself; these are the lines on which it should run.

Let the author constitute himself a woman, a delicate woman for choice, living with an unsympathetic brother, and having some extraordinary complaint which can only be cured by its victim being enclosed for twelve consecutive months within the walls of a garden. This mysterious disease, whose treatment recalls the seclusion of a private lunatic asylum, is getting so common in gardening books that it really deserves to be taken up by the medical profession and given a scientific name. It is well by the way that the garden have four walls, and they should be of red brick if possible, as they make a good background for description.

Now introduce an old gardener who cannot read or write, but who makes inapposite remarks in some terrible local dialect, which is native to no known locality in the British Isles, but is a blend of Scotch, and Cockney, and South Coast. Add a neighbor or two, of the thick-skinned variety, who comes in for the sole purpose of being dissected or gibed at by her garden hostess, and who presumably enjoys such a welcome, since she comes not once but with wearisome reiteration. Drag in an antique doctor, who with classic wit is always spoken of as Esculapius, add a curate to balance him, and bring in a small nephew or niece to act the

is essential, it causes the book at once to become intime. Write long wordy letters to some unfortunate imaginary man who is living a hard and practical life on the West Coast of Africa, or some unhealthy colony, and who presumably has fallen in love with the garden-lady because of her hopeless incapacity to do anything practical at all. Such a man would probably be thirsting for gossip and news of his friends, and word of what was going on at home in the way of sport; but in a garden book he is never humored by being told such frivolous things. He is treated in every letter to a story of perfect platitudes. The writer proceeds to fill many pages by stating in doubtful grammar the common things that every human being has to endure. She will mention how unpleasant it is to be called in the morning; how, because the boiler was furred, the bath water was not hot; what a nuisance it is that the blind cord is broken; and then, by way of being really interesting, she will burst into a graphic description of the miseries and mysteries of spring cleaning. Then she will give a recipe or two "culled from some dear old Herbal," for curing whooping-cough with spiders, or warts with snails boiled alive, and yet at the same time she will let it be clearly understood this letter (which will assuredly be over weight) is a Love Letter. This at first sight may seem a literary feat of some difficulty, as snails and love are not a usual or a happy combination, but experience has proved that it can be done.

A quotation or a proverb or two may be added with advantage in some such way as this:

"How true and beautiful are our dear old English proverbs! Did you

ever hear the one which I discovered in a sweet dirty old school copybook a few days ago in the village school whither I had gone to try and find out something about this Education Bill that everyone is making such a fuss about?

"The proverb was: A rolling stone gathers no moss.'

"I never realized the truth of it till last Wednesday week, when to test its truth, I surreptitiously threw a large stone down the path after our Vicar's wife, who had been paying me her weekly visit, and boring me as usual. She seemed a little surprised when she noticed what I had done, but then one's country neighbors are so dreadfully dense and never understand one's little ways! But as soon as she had slammed the garden door behind her-with unnecessary haste and vigor, I thought I rang the dinner-bell, which I always keep beside my invalid garden couch, as I have often told you, and bade the white-capped parlormaid pick up the stone and bring it to me. My dear good old Joggles, will you believe me when I tell you that though that fair-sized stone had rolled quite five yards on the heels of my departing guest there was no moss on it! Isn't it wonderful and beautiful to think of?. I have thought of nothing else all day, and I feel as though I had discovered a great truth! Do write up all over the walls of your log cabin, or bungalow is it?-I never can remember which people live in in Newfoundlandmy dear quaint old proverb, 'A rolling stone gathers no moss,' and whenever you read it think of me and the ununderstanding vicar's wife!"

Other well-known proverbs and quotations may be treated in this fashion; indeed, it is an excellent way of making up the number of thousand words demanded by the rapacious publisher!

Then into this medley fling the garden. Prattle about its every aspect;

say that the grass is green, and that the laburnum is yellow, and that most of the trees have leaves on them; state that it is not unusual to have showers in April, and that when it rains everything is apt to get wet. Then drift from the lawn into the kitchen garden; describe that sweet little caterpillar found in the cauliflower in the morning, which was met again with a thrill of recognition, cooked inadvertently, in the same vegetable at lunch. Here is a field for sentiment which should not be neglected. Discuss a morning stroll about the onion bed, and, if short of material, describe with ungrammatical vividness the pungent smell of decayed cabbage. The modern Romeo has been trained to appreciate these realistic details, and recognizes that no Love Letter would be complete without them.

An exhaustive catalogue of all the flowers and weeds growing in a certain bed may then follow, mention early birds and worms, etc.-only the writer must not fail to call the flowers and the weeds and the birds, ay! the very worms themselves, by Latin names, Myrsiphyllum asparagoïdes, Cratægus oxyacantha præcox, Ozothamnus rosmarinifolius, Dielytra spectabilis, for the pages of every garden book must be well powdered by Latin names-in italics. This latter point is most essential to the success of the book, as otherwise it might go by default, and be set down by a careless reviewer, hurriedly glancing at it, as merely a foolish correspondence between two illiterate people, and not as "a charming book to be sincerely recommended to all who love their gardens!"

So much for the literature of the garden-wife, which really deserves a more serious study than this mere cursory notice. But in common justice, both to it and to her, it is but right to say that in this case, as in many others, another dear old proverb, "Exceptions

prove the rule," also holds good. Not absolutely every garden-book depends entirely on its binding and get-up, and not absolutely every garden-wife belongs to the ancient and elastic order of Les Précieuses Ridicules. There are certain volumes by Mrs. Evelyn Cecil, Miss Jekyll, and Mr. Robinson which appeal even to that borné and conventional person the professional gardener, and undoubtedly there is a great charm to be found in a real commonplace book written by a genuine enthusiast for house and garden. Such a book as the original Pot Pourri has a real fragrance of its own, though the recollection of its scent has unfortunately been spoilt by the countless jars of damp and mildewed rose-leaves with which the market has since been flooded.

Undeniable is it, too, that there are some garden-wives with whom one is acquaint, who not only possess considerable practical knowledge, and that mysterious attribute "the gardener's thumb," but who also leave a very dainty footprint, if not upon the sands of time, at least upon the good brown earth of their garden. There are some few women who use their garden as the material for a poem, putting into it all the delicate imagination and fantasy which if they were poets they would put into their writings, or, if painters, paint into their pictures.

Rather wonderful in its way, and typical of this kind of poem-garden, is a garden which grows not round, but in, an old ruined house, whose roof is the open sky.

Centuries ago the house was the home of some of the great people of the land, but upon the place some enemy flung curse of death and flame, and gradually the family shrank and dwindled away till there was left only the old lord and his wife and a young grandson to whom the place should come. But his country claimed the