y to find another quickset hedge behaving similarly.
Now I can understand that a railway company has excellent reasons for
planting quickset hedges alongside its permanent way. But their
unspeakable monotony set me thinking. Why do we neglect the real parks of
England?--parks enormous in extent, and yet uncultivated, save here and
there and in the most timid fashion. And how better could our
millionaires use their wealth (since they are always confiding to us their
difficulties in getting rid of it) than by seeking out these gardens and
endowing them, and so, without pauperising anyone, build for themselves
monuments not only delightful, but perpetual?--for, as Victor Hugo said,
the flowers last always. So, you may say, do books. I doubt it; and
experts, who have discussed with me the modern products of the paper
trade, share my gloomy views. Anyhow, the free public library has been
sufficiently exploited, if not worked out. So, you may say again, have
free public gardens and parks been worked out. I think not. Admit that a
fair percentage of the public avails itself of these libraries and parks;
still the mass does not, and they were intended for the mass.
Their attractiveness does not spread and go on spreading. The stream of
public appreciation which pours through them is not fathomless; beyond a
certain point it does not deepen, or deepens with heart-breaking slowness;
and candid librarians and curators can sound its shallows accurately
enough. What we want is not a garden into which folk will find their way
if they have nothing better to do and can spare the time with an effort.
Or, to be accurate, we do want such gardens for deliberate enjoyment; but
what we want more is to catch our busy man and build a garden about him in
the brief leisure which, without seeking it, he is forced to take.

Where are these gardens? Why, beside and along our railway lines.
These are the great public parks of England; and through them travels
daily a vast population held in enforced idleness, seeking distraction in
its morning paper. Have you ever observed how a whole carriageful of
travellers on the Great Western line will drop their papers to gaze out on
Messrs. Sutton's trial-beds just outside Reading? A garish appeal, no
doubt: a few raying spokes of colour, and the vision has gone. And I
forestall the question, "Is that the sort of thing you wish to see
extended?--a bed of yellow tulips, for instance, or of scarlet