Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set ForthEarle, Alice Morse
History
Old-Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth
Earle, Alice Morse
Gardens; Landscape gardening
At one time dialling was taught by many a country schoolmaster, and
excellent and accurate sun-dials were made and set up by country
workmen, usually masons of slight education. In Scotland the making of
sun-dials has never died out. In America many pewter sun-dials were cast
in moulds of steatite or other material. A few dial-makers still remain;
one in lower New York makes very interesting-looking sun-dials of brass,
which, properly discolored and stained, find a ready sale in uptown
shops. I doubt if these are ever made for any special geographical
point, but there is in a small Pennsylvania town an old Quaker who makes
carefully calculated and accurate sun-dials, computed by logarithms for
special places. I should like to see him "sit like a shepherd carving
out dials, quaintly point by point." I have a very pretty circular brass
dial of his making, about eight inches in diameter. He writes me that
"the dial sent thee is a good students' dial, fit to set outside the
window for a young man to use and study by in college," which would
indicate to me that my Quaker dialler knows another type of collegian
from those of my acquaintance, who would find the time set by a sun-dial
rather slow.
[Illustration: Sun-dial in Garden of Charles F. Jenkins, Esq.,
Germantown, Pennsylvania.]
There have been those who truly loved sun-dials. Sir William Temple
ordered that after his death his heart should be buried under the
sun-dial in his garden--where his heart had been in life. 'Tis not
unusual to see a sun-dial over the gate to a burial ground, and a noble
emblem it is in that place; one at Mount Auburn Cemetery, near Boston,
bears a pleasing motto written originally by John G. Whittier for his
friend, Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, and inscribed on a beautiful
silver sun-dial now owned by Dr. Vincent Y. Bowditch of Boston,
Massachusetts. A facsimile of this dial was also placed before the Manor
House on the island of Naushon by Mr. John M. Forbes in memory of Dr.
Bowditch. The lines run thus:--
WITH WARNING HAND I MARK TIME'S RAPID FLIGHT
FROM LIFE'S GLAD MORNING TO ITS SOLEMN NIGHT.
YET, THROUGH THE DEAR GOD'S LOVE I ALSO SHOW
THERE'S LIGHT ABOVE ME, BY THE SHADE BELOW.
A sun-dial is to me, in many places, a far more inspiring memorial than
a monument or tablet. Let me give as an example the fine sun-dial,
designed by W. Gedney Beatty, Esq., and shown on page 359, which was
erected on the grounds of the Memorial Hospital at Morristown, New
Jersey, by the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to
mark the spot where Washington partook of the Communion.
What dignified and appropriate church appointments sun-dials are. A
simple and impressive bronze vertical dial on the wall of the Dutch
Reformed Church on West End Avenue, New York, is shown on page 346. The
sun-dial standing before the rectory of Grace Church on Broadway, New
York, is on page 364.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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