VAGABOND IMPRESSIONS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2664, 20 November 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

VAGABOND IMPRESSIONS.

THE ENGLISHMAN’S LOVE OF HIS

GARDEN

By FRANK FOX, the. well-known Australian Journalist, in the “Daily Mail.” ' x- . • •

. ■ Ho would be the. last man probably ;tcv suspect it, but the Englishman is at heart aesthetic. Yes, in spite of the horse-hair furniture, gilt-framed oleographs, wax-flower uecorations, and Early Victorian wallpapers, and other sins of which many of him have been and still are, guilty,- the Englishman has planted in him on art instinct. It shows in his love- of nature, of the green of his England. Almost - everyone aspires to come into touch with a bit of plant life. In the East End the aspiration takes the form of a window, garden. I saw, near Fenchurch-street Station “flats” let at six shillings a week with their window gardens. In the West End land which must he worth many thousands of pounds per acre is devoted to garden use. For want of better, a terrace of houses will have a little strip of plantation, at back or front, common to ail of them. House and flat agents always tell me that tenants almost demand, that there shall' he at least sight of a green tree from some window. In a small suburban house I know well a very considerable tax of money and labor is cheerfully paid in the effort to keep in good order a little pocket-handkerchief of lawn and a few shrubs. - This love of the ■ garden is holy and wholesome. You do not find it so generally in Australia. In Canada is is almost altogether lacking. A new city like Vancouver,' equally with an old citv like Montreal, is sad in its lack of gardenry. Along the English countryside the gardens are delicious, from the winsome cottage plots to the nobly sweeping landscape surrounding a typical manor house, blending a hundred individual beauties of law'll ? rosery, herb border, walled garden, wild garden into one enchanting‘mosaic. It is good to see that so much of the love of nature has still survived the sordidness of the industrial era. The rural immigrant to the great centres who, in a crowded citVj aspires to a bit of garden, has left in him some of the healthy earth tang. He can he won hack to the soil —when the nation is 'wise enough to try. LOVE OF TREES. The affectionate regard for trees in England was a pleasing thing to au Australian who in his own country lias often to protest against a sort of rage against trees as it they were enemies of the. human race. (The pioneer who lias had to clear a forest for the sake of Jus crop-and pasture gets into an unhappy state afterwards of tree-murder out of sheer wantonness.) At Amptlrill Dark (an old Henry VIII. hunting scat) I was shown oaks which in Cromwell s time were recorded as “too old to be cut down for the building of ships. They are still carefully preserved, some of. them enjoying old-age pensions 111 the shape of props to keep up their venerable limbs. .. , Having noted that the Englishman s home is, whenever possible, adorned with a little bit of green garden, step over its threshold and consider its domestic economy: Th’s must be done by classes. In the wealthiest class the house is perfectly managed. It seems to run lik ( > the fabled machine of perpetual motion. There is no sign of the driving power, no racket, no effort. Breakfast is a meal of charming informality, which, I think, illustrates best the domestic ideals of the Englishman. Self-help from amply furnished sideboards and from tea and coffee urns, is the rule. There is' no fixed moment for coming down to breakfast, and, since you help yourself, no servants need be in attendance. How pleasantly thought out is this idea! You have not the urging to an inconvenient punctuality of the thought that you are keeping servants awaiting. Dinner is a ceremony of ritual. It is-the social crown of the day. You are expected to treat it with the • coiisiderateness duo to its importance. To be asked to dinner is tlie sign,of the Englishman’s complete acceptance of you as a desirable person. (He may ask you to lunch without admitting quite so much.) To be asked, casually, “to .eat something with us” at dinner shows an actual friendliness which is willing to allow some familiarity. REFINED LUXURY. It is because the luxury of upperclass life in England is so suave and so refined that it seems so right and proper. It does not challenge antagonism as does the arrogant wealth of a typical millionaire. Nevertheless the contrast between West End and East ..End is too terrible to oe just. I allow that one class is willing to bridge the gap, that tue other class is patient ; and still wou d urge haste to the social ro- '• former —haste to reduce the ranks of the workless, • todnerease the rewards of Vlio worker. The middle class fashions itself, as closely ns it can, on the upper-class. Its home is often as admirably managed though on a smaller scale. Its obser- • van.ee of etiquette is more rigid, especin The “lower middle-class.” One is almost tempted to think that smooth home-management is the Englishman’s (or the Englishwoman's) exclusive gift by the fact that in Australia it is rare, in America rarer, and in London the two houses I have been in which most fell away from the ideal were not kept by English folk; But the Australian housekeeper, when good, is very good indeed, and manages with fewer servants than the English dame of the same degree. The “class distinctions” among English servants are amusing. . They seem to suggest a nation which likes casts. An earl is quite assuredly, not as careful of asserting his dignity as a butler is. The domestic economy of the country cottager seems generally good. He has not the lazy folly of many Australians of the same class (vou will often find a small Australian farmer using tinned milk and tinned fruits and buying vegetables" for the table.) The English cottager usually keeps poultry,, pigs, occasionally a cow, and grows his own vegetables. This helps him to a comfortable standard of living. The citv worker’s home I have not seen enough of yet to be able to.give a careful opiniqn. But he seems to make the mistake of trying to ape the standards of. richer people, sacrificing a good deal of material comfort to have, for instance, his drawing-room or pairlor, This remark, I know, may be thought to he snobbish and may bo looked upon as an argument' for “class distinctions.” It • is not meant fob that. A self-respedt- . ;ipg man does not model 'his'-mode of life on another fellow’s', but on his.own means arid noeds. Quite the best thing in the English character is its independence ; and one would like to see that more shown by the industrial popti.L ation in habits of life as well as in opinions.