The Garden Without Walls

here that my mother died. When I was about six, a false-dawn came in my father’s pr

-merchants, maiden-ladies, and widows, who came there because it was reasonable in price without being shabby. It was a backwater of the surging stream of London life where one found time to grow flowers, rea

the lane, so steeply did the walls rise up on either side. It led nowhere and was a mere tunnel dotted with doors. Did the doors open by chance as you were passing, yo

e keeping up of appearances was a continuous and unrelenting fight. Early in the morning he was at his desk; the last thing in the evening, when I ventured into his study to bid him good-night, his pen was still toiling industriously across the page.

ied twenty years of his life, was The History of Human Progress. It was really a history of human selfishness, written to prove that every act which has dug man out of the mire, however seemingly sacrificial and no

mic mind; consequently he off-set his natural predisposition to faith by re-acting from everything accepted, and scrawled across the page of recorded altruism a gigantic note of interrogation. He gave to strangers and little boys the impression of being cynical and hard, whereas he ha

. How many hours, mounting into years, he wasted on literary failures—hours which might have been spent on people and friendships. As a child I

es and think back, I am there again. Moss-grown walks spread before me. Peaches on the wall ripen. I catch the fragrance of box, basking in sunshine. I see my father’s study-window and the ivy blown across the pane. He is seated

rch, and call for me when service was ended. He never came inside. His intellectual integrity forbade it

o tyranny, and both are dependent for their happiness on omnipotent persons’ moods and fortunes. A maidservant is always dreaming of a day when she will marry a lord, and drive up in a glittering carriage to patroni

the great beyond? Rumors came to me; sometimes it was the roar of London to the southward; sometimes it was the sing-song of a mower traversing a neighbor’s lawn. I dreamt of an unwall

acter and life. In recent years I have tried to procure a copy. All traces of it seem to have vanished. If I ever knew th

to be magic. All you had to do was to seat yourself upon it, hold on tight, and wish where you wanted to be carried. In a trice you were beyond the reach of adults, flying over roofs and spires, post-haste to the land of your desire. In that book little boys ate as much as they liked and never had stomach-ache. Th

the spirit of romance, the soul of youth, the revolt against limitations. They appealed to the lawless elemen

father had been when we had had her with us. Perhaps, if she returned, he would be happy. Then an inspiration came; there was one carpet which I had not tested—it lay before the fire-place in my father’s study. But how

study-door open and close. In waiting I began to drowse. I came to myself with a shudder. What hour it was I could not guess. I got out of bed. Stealing to the top of the stairs I looked down; all was blackness. Listening, I could hear the heavy breathing of sleepers. Bare-footed, I crept down into the hall, clinging to the banisters. The air was bi

was standing, watching me. I did not scream or cry out. He came toward me through

rms. Without a word of question or explanation, he carried me up to bed. Before he left, he halted as though he were trying to utter some thought

y on the ground and there were no flowers, but the room