" Nothing so free and gracious, so lovely
and wistful, nothing so richly coloured, yet so ghostlike, exists,
planted by the sons of men. It is a kind of paradise which has wandered
down, a miraculously enchanted wilderness. Brilliant with azaleas, or
magnolias, it centres round a pool of dreamy water, overhung by tall
trunks wanly festooned with the grey Florida moss. Beyond anything I
have ever seen, it is otherworldly. And I went there day after day,
drawn as one is drawn in youth by visions of the Ionian Sea, of the
East, or the Pacific Isles. I used to sit paralysed by the absurdity of
putting brush to canvas in front of that dream-pool. I wanted to paint
of it a picture like that of the fountain, by Helleu, which hangs in
the Luxembourg. But I knew I never should.
I was sitting there one sunny afternoon, with my back to a clump of
azaleas, watching an old coloured gardener--so old that he had started
life as an "owned" negro, they said, and certainly still retained the
familiar suavity of the old-time darky--I was watching him prune the
shrubs when I heard the voice of Rupert K.
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