till then!

So it is that, though I am no worshipper of the old, I think the older
gardeners had in some ways a better practice of the art than we have,
for they planted not for the eye alone but for the nose and the sense of
taste and even, in growing such plants as the lamb's tongue, to gratify,
curiously, the sense of touch. They loved the scented herbs, and
appropriately called them simples. Some of these old simples I am
greatly fond of, and like to snip a leaf as I go by to smell or taste;
but many of them, I here confess, have for me a rank and culinary
odour--as sage and thyme and the bold scarlet monarda, sometimes called
bergamot.

But if their actual fragrance is not always pleasing, and their uses are
now grown obscure, I love well the names of many of them--whether from
ancient association or because the words themselves fall pleasantly upon
the ear, as, for example, sweet marjoram and dill, anise and summer
savoury, lavender and sweet basil. Coriander! Caraway! Cumin! And
"there's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember,...
there's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you: and here's
some for me--" All sweet names that one loves to roll under his tongue.

I have not any great number of these herbs in my own garden, but, when I
go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names as
I would a dignified doctor or professor, if ever I knew him well enough.

It is in this want of balance and quietude that the age fails most. We
are all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy
ways to knowledge and shortcuts to perfection; we are for laws rather
than for life.

And this reminds me inevitably of a mellow-spirited old friend who lives
not a thousand miles from here--I must not tell his name--whose greatest
word is "proportion." At this moment, as I write, I can hear the roll of
his resonant old voice on the syllable p-o-r--prop-o-rtion. He is the
kind of man good to know and to trust.

If ever I bring him a hard problem, as, indeed, I delight to do, it is a
fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his
eye, he draws back his chin a little and exclaims occasionally:
"Well--well!"

He will have all the facts and circumstances fully mobilized, standing
up side by side before him like an awkward squad, and there's nothing
more awkward than some facts that have to stand out squarely in
daylight! And he inquires into th