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BOX EDGINGS

"They walked over the crackling leaves in the garden, between the lines of Box, breathing its fragrance of eternity; for this is one of the odors which carry us out of time into the abysses of the unbeginning past; if we ever lived on another ball of stone than this, it must be that there was Box growing on it."

—Elsie Venner, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1861.

To many of us, besides Dr. Holmes, the unique aroma of the Box, cleanly bitter in scent as in taste, is redolent of the eternal past; it is almost hypnotic in its effect. This strange power is not felt by all, nor is it a present sensitory influence; it is an hereditary memory, half-known by many, but fixed in its intensity in those of New England birth and descent, true children of the Puritans; to such ones the Box breathes out the very atmosphere of New England's past. I cannot see in clear outline those prim gardens of centuries ago, nor the faces of those who walked and worked therein; but I know, as I stroll to-day between our old Box-edged borders, and inhale the beloved bitterness of fragrance, and gather a stiff sprig of the beautiful glossy leaves, that in truth the garden lovers and garden workers of other days walk beside me, though unseen and unheard.

About thirty years ago a bright young Yankee girl went to the island of Cuba as a governess to the family of a sugar planter. It was regarded as a somewhat perilous adventure by her home-staying folk, and their apprehensions of ill were realized in her death there five years later. This was not, however, all that happened to her. The planter's wife had died in this interval of time, and she had been married to the widower. A daughter had been born, who, after her mother's death, was reared in the Southern island, in Cuban ways, having scant and formal communication with her New England kin. When this girl was twenty years old, she came to the little Massachusetts town where her mother had been reared, and met there a group of widowed and maiden aunts, and great-aunts. After sitting for a time in her mother's room in the old home, the reserve which often exists between those of the same race who should be friends but whose lives have been widely apart, and who can never have more than a passing sight of each other, made them in semi-embarrassment and lack of resources of mutual interest walk out into the garden. As they passed down the path between high lines of Box, the girl suddenly stopped, looked in terror at the gate, and screamed out in fright, "The dog, the dog, save me, he will kill me!" No dog was there, but on that very spot, between those Box hedges, thirty years before, her mother had been attacked and bitten by an enraged dog, to the distress and apprehension of the aunts, who all recalled the occurrence, as they reassured the fainting and bewildered girl. She, of course, had never known aught of this till she was told it by the old Box.

House and Garden at Napanock. County Ulster, New York.

Many other instances of the hypnotic effect of Box are known, and also of its strong influence on the mind through memory. I know of a man who travelled a thousand miles to renew acquaintance and propose marriage to an old sweetheart, whom he had not seen and scarcely thought of for years, having been induced to this act wholly through memories of her, awakened by a chance stroll in an old Box-edged garden such as those of his youth; at the gate of one of which he had often lingered, after walking home with her from singing-school. I ought to be able to add that the twain were married as a result of this sentimental memory-awakening through the old Box; but, in truth, they never came very close to matrimony. For when he saw her he remained absolutely silent on the subject of marriage; the fickle creature forgot the Box scent and the singing-school, while she openly expressed to her friends her surprise at his aged appearance, and her pity for his dulness. For the sense of sight is more powerful than that of smell, and the Box might prove a master hand at hinting, but it failed utterly in permanent influence.

Those who have not loved the Box for centuries in the persons and with the partial noses of their Puritan forbears, complain of its curious scent, say, like Polly Peacham, that "they can't abear it," and declare that it brings ever the thought of old graveyards. I have never seen Box in ancient burying-grounds, they were usually too neglected to be thus planted; but it was given a limited space in the cemeteries of the middle of this century. Even those borders have now generally been dug up to give place to granite copings.

The scent of Box has been aptly worded by Gabriel d'Annunzio, in his Virgin of the Rocks, in his description of a neglected garden. He calls it a "bitter sweet odor," and he notes its influence in making his wanderers in this garden "reconstruct some memory of their far-off childhood."

The old Jesuit poet Rapin writing in the seventeenth century tells a fanciful tale that—

"Gardens of old, nor Art, nor Rules obey'd,

But unadorn'd, or wild Neglect betray'd;"

that Flora's hair hung undressed, neglected "in artless tresses," until in pity another nymph "around her head wreath'd a Boxen Bough" from the fields; which so improved her beauty that trim edgings were placed ever after—"where flowers disordered once at random grew."

He then describes the various figures of Box, the way to plant it, its disadvantages, and the associate flowers that should be set with it, all in stilted verse.

Queen Anne was a royal enemy of Box. By her order many of the famous Box hedges at Hampton Court were destroyed; by her example, many old Box-edged gardens throughout England were rooted up. There are manifold objections raised to Box besides the dislike of its distinctive odor: heavy edgings and hedges of Box "take away the heart of the ground" and flowers pine within Box-edged borders; the roots of Box on the inside of the flower knot or bed, therefore, have to be cut and pulled out in order to leave the earth free for flower roots. It is also alleged that Box harbors slugs—and I fear it does.