These wonders he chose not to repeat--for
reasons. Pence, to begin with, failed him. The work itself was associated
with the happiest and the saddest moments of his life; he had not the
heart to begin it. Moreover, in the course of his year's work of house-
building and settling in, he had kept an eye for Nature's way in his
valley, and when it came to making a flower-garden he found that she had
one there to his hand.
He said, "Nothing is lovelier in flowers than true colour. Form is nothing
to Nature; it is one of Art's tricks. Here I may have a succession of pure
washes by mere concentration of what I find. The downs give me everything;
all I have to do is to group them.
"Here is my design. For early spring, cowslips in a cloud. Scattered
broadcast, they are happy accidents which you come upon walking; but if
you mass them their scent tells, and you find they are nearer the colour
of oranges than of limes.
"For mid-April and early May I have the orchids--a blood-spatter on the
bottom; higher the flecked white, the pink, and the yellow with brown.
Then for a shelf among rocks the milk-worts, the sky-blue, the white and
the pink; with these I float out May like Fra Angelico.
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