A Garden Wall

1895

I do not dislike garden walls. It is sometimes a good and consoling thought to reflect that one is in a well secured inclosure, alone with perfumes, flowers, trees, the air, the sun, the stars, remembrances and reveries, and to know that nobody can come and disturb you. I like walls, but I do not like white walls. I like nothing but old walls. I have one here which pleases me much. It is just as old as it ought to be. If it were a little older, it would be given over to the mercy of bricklayers, who would introduce all sorts of new bricks and white stones. As it is, it is gray and slack and diversified with the subdued tints of 20 species of mosses and lichens. It is crowned with yellow wallflowers and ferns, which root in the crevices on its summit, and its base is buttressed by pellitory and nettle in masses of richest green. — Alphonse Karr.