CHAPTER I

THE CHARM AND SENTIMENT OF SUN-DIALS
" A Dial is the Visible Map of" Time, till Whose Invention 'twas follie in the Sun to play with a Shadow. It is the Anatomic of the Day and a Scale of Miles for the Jornie of the Sun. It is the silent Voice of Time and without it the Day were dumbe. ... It is ye Book of ye Sun on which he writes the Storie of the Day. Lastly Heaven itself is but a generall Dial, and a Dial it, in a
lesser volume." — Heliotropum Sciotberhum, ROBERT HEGOE, 1630.
HERE are in nature some simple expressions of useful- ness which have a charm that is impossible to de- fine. This charm seems to consist in the direct, the unadorned, and unencum- bered application of shape and form to the reason of their being. They are often primitive objects, sometimes those of ancient races, where each line has been shaped out unconsciously through centuries of use, not with any thought of
2 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
beauty, but to serve distinctly and simply the pur- pose of existence. Such objects are the snow-shoe and the canoe of our North American Indians; absolutely perfect in outline, devoid of all super- fluities, impossible of improvement, they possess in full not only beauty, but the charm to which I refer. An ancient Greek lamp is another exam- ple ; this classic form of lamp was used not alone in ancient Greece, but in scores of other lands, by mediaeval races, and even in humble homes by our own contemporaries. The iron " betty-lamps " of our New England grandmothers, found still in remote New England homes, — lamps with hanging chain, small oval body and protruding lip to hold a primitive wick, differ not in single detail or outline from the lamps of ancient Rome and Egypt. House- hold lamps retained this antique useful shape as long as the same domestic mediums of illumination were used, — namely, household grease and oil. With the introduction of more lavish means of illumination came varied forms of presentation of artificial light, and the old simplicity of outline of the hanging lamp vanished.
The sun-dial is another striking example of the charm of simplicity in form and directness in utility ; its lines and markings are the absolute mathematical expression of the information it gives ; it is set on a decorative pedestal or fixed with ornamentation on a wall simply for convenience of our sight. You may elaborate the lines of the dial-face, and decorate the mounting of the dial, but that does not add to its subtility of charm. You feel that curious inter-
Sun-dial at Glamis Castle, Scotland; Seat of the Earl of Strathmore.
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 3
est and "drawing unto " in the simplest sun-dial of dull metal fixed on the kitchen window-sill of the humble farm-house, just as you feel it in the won- derful dial of Glamis in old Scotland.
This exquisite monumental dial, deemed by many the masterpiece of all dials, may well open the series of illustrations of sun-dials in this book. It stands on the grounds of Glamis Castle,, home of tragedy, legend, and romance ; even its picture speaks to us of Macbeth, the shadowy Thane of Glamis, and of the charm and magic of Shakespeare's play.
This picture of the dial is better than any descrip- tion ; but it may be noted that the twenty-four facets of the head have each three and some four dials, giving over eighty dials in all. The rampant lions each hold a fine vertical dial, one of which is elliptic in shape, nineteen inches long ; two are square, thir- teen and one-half inches in diameter; and the fourth is rectangular and is fifteen and one-half inches long. The lions are separated by four beautiful twisted pillars carved in the spiral hollows. The height of the dial is thus divided : —
Height from ground to place on which the lions stand 3 ft. 7 in.
Height of lions . . . . . 5 ft. 2 in.
Cornice . . . . . . I ft.
From top of cornice to upper part of faceted head . 3 ft. 3! in.
Facet head . . . . . . 3 ft. 5! in.
Scrolls and coronet . . . . . 4 ft. 9 in.
Total . . . 21 ft. 3 in.
The width of the octagonal lower step at its base is ten feet and ten inches ; it forms thus, as may be
4 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
plainly seen, a grand monumental dial, fit for the majestic castle beside which it is reared.
This castle is the residence of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore ; and this fine photograph was taken by Lady Maude Bowes-Lyon for this
book. The dial is certainly three centuries old, as it ap- pears in a print of the castle previous to the year 1600, and was named in Earl Patrick's Book of Record of a date pre- vious to 1695. Thesun-dial has for us an- other charm — one that is common to all deeds and in- struments that note the pass- ing of time. In the days of childhood we gathered eagerly the downy seed-balls of the Dandelion, and as we held them aloft we blew upon them with strong young lungs, and called out: "What's the hour-o'-the-day?' Thus do all children of all lands wherever the Dandelion blows and turns "quite
Sun-dial at Balcarres Castle, Fifeshire.
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 5
old and gray." Vague was the answer of the bared stem of the Dandelion to us ; and I doubt if we expected to learn from it the time. It might have answered in nearly the words of the old sun-dial motto : Hora non numero nisi juventas. i COUNT ONLY YOUTHFUL HOURS. We ask the hour with equal intentness of the long-legged garden-spider and of the grasshopper : -
" Grandfather, grandfather gray, Tell us the time-o'-the-day."
We had thus early in life the universal instinct of humanity, a longing to count the hours and min- utes of passing time ; and we never wearied of the trial. How full of significance also is the hour-glass, how classic its shape ; what a charm has it for the child — just as it had in the childhood of life for ancient peoples.
With what exquisite perfection of simplicity has Tennyson, in his In Memorzam, characterized the succession of marking the passing of Time by hour- glass, sun-dial, and clock ! -
" For every grain of sand that runs
And every space of shade that steals And every kiss of toothed wheels And all the courses of the sun."
The sun-dial is a creature of equal sentiment and sense. Its good sense is proven by its being so perfectly satisfying, so absolute. You may deem its sphere a restricted one, its message a short one ; but it fulfils its duty, and tells its story to perfection-
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
it is satisfying. And this is no small thing when we recall how few objects there are in this world, whether formed by nature or shaped by art, that are satisfy- ing. Try to name them ! the perfect, the wholly satisfying things you know ; there a few books — and
alas ! how few they are ; and some pic- tures — I can count them far too quickly. Roses and Fritil- laries are as abso- lutely satisfying as the sun-dial, and happily many trees. A Ural Mountain amethyst, yes, and two cocker-spaniels, friends of mine ; once in a lifetime a gown ; I suppose ar- chitects could name some buildings for this list; and some folk may have had a perfect horse ; and I know a few per- fect pieces of domestic furniture, of silver, of china. But nearly all sun-dials please us absolutely — cer- tainly all simple and direct ones, and I think it well worth while to exist merely to be satisfying if noth- ing more.
But the sun-dial is a thing of deep sentiment.
Sun-dial at Kelburne House, Ayrshire Seat of the Earl of Glasgow.
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 7
All feel the beauty and wonder of the thought that Time, that most intangible, most fleeting, most won- derful of conditions, is marked so fittingly in its passing by a shadow almost equally intangible ; and that the noblest evidences of creation — the stars in the heavens — would be to us invisible and unknown save for their revelation through the shadow of the earth. Thus are great truths revealed to us, not by great Light but by Darkness — a lesson of Life.
The Quaker poet Bernard Barton felt the senti- ment of the sun-dial ; it accorded well with his temperament and his faith. Here are his noble verses : —
" With still more joy to thee I turn,
Meet horologe for Bard to love ; Time's sweetest flight from thee I learn, Whose lore is borrowed from above.
«' I love in some sequestered nook Of antique garden to behold The page of thy sun-lighted book Its touching homily unfold.
" On some old terrace wall to greet
Thy form and sight which never cloys ; 'Tis more to thought than drink or meat, To feeling than Art's costliest toys.
" These seem to track the path of time
By vulgar means which man has given. Thou — simple, silent, and sublime —
But shows thy shadowy sign from Heaven."
" Simple, silent, and sublime " — in its silence the sun-dial is strong.
There is such severity, such dignity in the noise-
8 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
less marking of the flight of Time ; no irritating tick- ing, no striking of the hours, no sounding of bells. Silently as surely, the hours pass away, and the day with even measure balances its periods till the setting sun leaves a darkness equal to the silence.
" The sly shadow steals away upon the dial and the quickest eye can discover no more, but that it is gone," wrote Glanville. There is an element of mystery in this imperceptible flight, and all mystery is alluring ; you may note the swaying pendulum of the clock, or you may hear the ticking of the watch, you may see the tiny stream of sand of the hour- glass, but you can see no movement of the shadow; " nice," said Lamb, " as an evanescent cloud or the first arrests of sleep."
How vast, how wonderful is the thought of Life, of the passing of Time ! How crude, how paltry our definitions ! How petty our explanations ! Only by symbolism can these things be expressed !
In the Talmud are these fine lines : —
"Life is a passing shadow, says the Scripture. Is it the shadow of a tower? of a tree ? a shadow that prevails for a while ? No, it is the shadow of a bird in his flight — away flies the bird, and there is neither bird nor shadow."
We cannot hold this shadow, if we would, but its passing is shown to us on the sun-dial. And on the dial-face alone does this passing seem irrevocable — unceasing. You may refuse to turn the hour- glass and thus deceive yourself that Time flies not. You can cease to fill the water-clock and let the weights of your clock run down until its hands turn
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The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 9
not — but you cannot check the course of the sun's shadow.
Wonderful as is this thought of the present of the dial, its past is more profound.
" The shadow on the dial's face
That steals from day to day With slow unseen, unceasing pace
Moments and months and years away, This shadow which in every clime
Since light and motion first began Hath held its course sublime."
"Since light and motion first began": when on the Fourth Day of the Creation, God said, -
" Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.
u And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth ; and it was so."
And the dial was so also ; the trunks of the trees were gnomons, there was light, there was motion, there were shadows, and therefore there were sun- dials. As Charles Lamb said of a dial, " Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise."
Certain inanimate objects have a semi-human closeness to us. I do not by this refer to objects with which we have intimate and happy associations, such as a chair in which loved ones have sat, a desk at which we ourselves have long written ; but I mean that an inherent quality is possessed by some objects which even at first sight makes them seem almost human. I always feel this quality in mile-
io Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
stones and in old windmills ; of course we all have known deep attachment for certain books, which is natural enough, since they have spoken so plainly to us. Many musicians know this feeling for and
Moot Hall, with Sun-dial, Aldeburgh, England.
about their musical instruments, and workmen often have it and always should have it for their tools.
Many feel this with clocks and watches, and I am deeply sensible of it in a sun-dial. Of course, in the dial, it may be partly because the dial has a
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 1 1
voice, its lines and numerals speak if it has no motto ; but it should always bear a motto or in- scription. This at once gives it a nearness to humanity; it is our kinsman, our fellow-countryman; it speaks our language. The pointing hand of the guide board gives to it a semi-human appearance ; the simple words of the mile-stone make us ever interested in it; all inscriptions draw us close to the thing inscribed. I have told often of my love of mottoes, legends, inscriptions, notes inscribed everywhere.
We have an orchard seat, and such a seat among fruit trees has a fresh pleasure for every spring morn and summer day. On the yellow pine surface that forms the back of this seat, a friend has lettered in heavy ink, which we renew in blackness each spring, these lines from Wordsworth, which the poet might have written with this very orchard spread around him : —
" Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed Their snow-white blossoms on my head With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather; In this sequester' d nook how sweet To sit upon my orchard seat ! And flowers and birds once more to greet,
My last year's friends together."
Now what is the result of that inscription? It is this : the commonplace orchard seat was made at once a different being ; it was given a voice - - and that voice was the voice of a friend. It did far more than to speak to us of the friend who transcribed
12 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
the lines ; it brought to us Wordsworth, and his orchard seat, and then the beauties of the Lake Coun- try ; it made travellers think of the birds seen there ; and it spoke to us of many old friends who had sat. with us in the orchard. Thus it is with the motto on a sun-dial ; it ever speaks, a different message perhaps to each who reads it, but an inspiring mes- sage, one sometimes of great moment.
A motto of wonderful power is the few words from the New Testament, FOR THE NIGHT COM- ETH. In Greek, Hebrew, Latin, or English this motto is seen. To the thoughtful mind it ever recalls the solemn scene where the warning words were spoken, our Saviour's admonition to prepare for eternity. It spoke with infinite force to Sir Walter Scott when he read it on his dial at Abbots- ford, urging him to incessant work. The story of his dial is told in his Life by Lockhart, and the curi- ous fact that the Greek words of its inscription were incorrect. The presentment of his dial is shown on page 13 ; the photograph was not taken from the original dial, but from an exact reproduction of it in the garden at Hillside, Menand's, New York. The original dial was sadly worn and disordered when it was drawn for Mr. Douglas the publisher. He had it repaired and reset, and had this reproduc- tion made. It is exact as to lettering as well as shape, impresses having been taken from the dial.
Another thought comes forcibly in the words, FOR THE NIGHT COMETH, — the absolute cutting off of all power of marking the passing of time through the shadowing of the dial by night. It is an im-
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 13
Sun-dial at Hillside, Menand's, New York.
pressive thought, — the death of a day. Rossetti thus expressed it : —
" Slowly fades the sun from the wall Till day lies dead on the sun-dial."
The sentiment and beauty of the sun-dial ap- pealed to and charmed many a poet. I have gath-
14 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
ered in my Common-place Book a florilege of scores, almost hundreds of verses, relating to the sun-dial. Some of these sentiments are most tender and touch- ing ; and with the spirit of most of them I can sympathize. I give the opening verses of lines written by Hugh Miller to show the notions he wished to express, though they convey not a single word of my thought of a sun-dial : —
" Gray dial-stone, I fain would know
What motive placed thee here Where darkly opes the frequent grave
And rests the frequent bier ; Ah, bootless creeps the dusky shade
Slow o'er thy figured plain : When mortal life has passed away
Time counts his hours in vain.
" I think of those that raised thee here,
Of those beneath thee laid, And ponder if thou wert not raised
In mockery o'er the dead. Ah, never sure could mortal man,
Whate're his age or clime, Thus raise in mocking o'er the dead
The stone that measures time."
There still stands at the old home of Hugh Miller an ornate dial-stone (it will be noted that he never says sun-dial) which he cut for amusement in a period of recovery from illness ; it is near another dial, an ancient one which he dug out of the earth when he was a boy, and which had originally been set up in the old Castle garden of Cromarty. By the side of this ancient dial Miller first saw the young girl who afterward became his wife. The
Angel with Sun-dial on Cathedral, Genoa, Italy.
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 15
dial-verses were written in early youth ; an age when most poets love to write upon death and gloomy moral" lessons. Perhaps had he written them after he met his sweetheart, they might have been more natural. However, the chief reason why I do not like them is that they are not poetry ; they form a perfect example of Dr. Edward Everett Hale's amus- ing method given in his advice How to Write, an exercise of " capping verses."
A true lover of Charles Lamb asserts that he ever finds in Lamb the best thoughts on any subject — whatever it may be ; thus, upon sun-dials he would believe that the ideal sentiment was expressed by Lamb in his Essay on the Old Benchers of the Inner Temple. It is indeed inexpressibly fine in poetic feeling — far beyond any poem we have; and de- serves quotation in full by all who write on dials : —
" What an antique air had the now almost effaced sun- dials with their moral inscriptions, seeming coevals with that time which they measured, and to take their reve- lations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding cor- respondence with the fountain of light ! How would the dark line steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood eager to detect its movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep !
"Ah ! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand Steal from its figure, and no pace perceived.
" What a dead thing is a clock, with its pondrous em- bowelments of 'lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like struc- ture and silent heart-language of the old dial.
i6
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
u It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business use be suspended by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sun- set, of temperance and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It was the meas- ure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring by, for the birds to apportion their silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd 4 carved it out quaintly in the sun, 'and turning philosopher by the very occupation, pro- vided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones."
I have ever been struck with one expression of Lamb in writing of the sun-dial ; he called it " a simple altar -like struc- ture." It is partly the classic shape of the sun-dial — its altar-like form — which charms us; and a proof to me of the wisdom of simplicity in outline for every dial-pillar is in the fact that the simpler forms evoke the greater senti- ment.
Dante's Amor. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 17
I find that half the folk who speak of sun-dials like to quote Austin Dobson's verses on a sun-dial, and worthy of quotation they are, and full of sentiment : -
" 'Tis an old dial dark with many a stain. In Summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom, Tricked in the Autumn with the yellow rain, And white in Winter like a marble tomb.
And round about its gray, time-eaten brow
Lean letters speak — a worn and shattered row : —
' I am a Shade — a Shadowe too, art thou.
I mark the Time. Saye ! Gossip ! Dost thou soe ? ' "
The last couplet has been used as a motto on several sun-dials both in England and America. On a dial at Grey Friars Churchyard, Stirling, is a similar motto : -
I AM A SHADOW, SO ART THOU. I MARK TIME DOST THOU?
Rossetti felt deeply the significance and charm of the sun-dial. He wrote these beautiful lines : —
" Stands it not by the door ? Love's Hour — ?
Its eyes invisible
Watch till the dark thin-thrown shade Be born, --yea, till the journeying line be laid
Upon the point that notes the spell."
What mystery the presence of a dial adds to his beautiful painting of Beata Beatrix, where a hori- zontal dial on the widow-sill marks to Beatrix the coming of her wonderful death-trance. On page
i8
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
16.
I have given a reproduction of the angel in
Rossetti's beautiful pencil sketch called Dantes Amor. This angel holds an ancient Saxon sun-dial. Many of the cathedrals on the Continent have carved angels on brackets or corbels holding sun- dials. A beautiful angel with dial at Chartres is here shown ; also facing page 14 a still older carv- ing upon the Genoa ca- thedral. These figures offer wonderful suggestion for a memorial window- dial, such as is described in the succeeding chap- ter.
As an object of interest and romance in a garden, the sun-dial has a strong hold on our sentiment ; we have seen that artists have painted it and poets have written of it. As a mystery to childhood, a trysting-place for faithful lovers, a sad reminder to a deserted sweetheart ;
Angel with Sundial, Cathedral, & ^^ for mora)izing
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 19
for the preacher, and of reminiscence to the aged gardener, its place in pictures — either in print or on canvas — is a permanent one. Of all spots for a garden-dial the focus of a formal garden is the most suited ; that focus may be the centre, or where sev- eral paths converge, or in a recessed end ; but wher- ever it is, the dial should be the point of high interest. From its very nature it is (unless miserably hidden) that point of interest. The poetical suggestion of a sun-dial never could be more fully shown than in the fine picture opposite page 20 of dial and man ; for the man is the great English artist, George F. Watts, who has given to us a conception of the passing of Time and of Death which has ennobled Art, and robbed Death of its horror. And it is a beautiful thought that his dial bears the motto of the artist's life — THE UTMOST FOR THE HIGHEST. I can never adequately express my gratitude for the kindly and thoughtful gift of this photograph taken solely with intent to gratify an unknown author across the seas, through the timely sending for the illustration of her book, this counterfeit presentment both of artist and dial. This dial, with its faceted head of antique design, was made for Mr. Watts at the Arts and Crafts Association of his own village — a village industry where modelling in terra cotta is taught and done.
Through its inherent characteristics of pictu- resqueness, symbolism, and sentiment, the day of the dial in England has been a long one ; but in our new world we have not always regarded sentiment in our surroundings, and sun-dials have been in
2O Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
retirement. In our cities they have vanished. I did not for years, until about six years ago, know a sun-dial upon a building in New York or Brooklyn, save one a stone's throw from my own home. By the side of Grace Church, in Brooklyn, there runs down to the open gardens on the beautiful Heights which overhang the wharves of the harbor, a short and quiet street called Grace Court. Dwelling- houses are built facing the north on one side of the Court, while on the other side are no houses ; and there is a fine expanse of adjoining gardens in the rear of the row of houses which face on Remsen Street — an unusual expanse for city streets. In those gardens and around the church there lived in our crowded city, from early spring till midwinter, with life as free as in his native wilds, a great white cockatoo, who had escaped from some South Amer- ican ship as it lay at the wharf under the Heights. Hiding in the trees in the daytime, and perhaps in the church tower, he tapped at friendly windows at night, like a white-winged ghost, confident of the welcome and food which he always found ; some- times he screamed out harshly in angry hunger, and sometimes he spoke, as he tapped, foreign words of greeting or comment taught him by the sailor who had brought him to this port.
Into one of these gardens stretches out an artistic two-storied extension of fine brick and terra-cotta walls ; and in the apex of the gable, facing the direct south, is a large bronze sun-dial of triangular shape. It can from its prominent position be plainly seen by passers-by and church attendants ; and it has
George F. Watts, R.A., seated in his Garden by his Sun-dial, Limnerslease, Compton, England.
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 21
been a never ceasing source of pleasure to me for many years to note how closely it corresponds to clock time. I never fail to glance at it in passing. I used to hope to see the cockatoo wisely bending over it ; and that he would croak out to me over the gardens, "What's the time-o'-the-day ? "
The owner of this sun-dial when so few cared for sun-dials, and many had never seen one, was Samuel Bowne Duryea, Esq. ; and he put his fancy for sun- dials to practical use, laying one around the flag-staff at Robin's Island, tracing the analemma in colored stones, where it was an object of interest to all who saw it.
It is strange that the sun-dial should have been so generally neglected ; our patriotism should have made us cherish it as an emblem closely connected with the early material prosperity of the United States. I have told at some length in my book en- titled Old Time Gardens, of the interesting presence of the sun-dial in our national history ; but I must refer to it again here. In the first coinage of the United States a sun-dial made frequent appearance. A design of a sun-dial was on the dollar which was cast in silver, then in bronze, then in pewter; it appeared on the copper cent and was printed on a paper note of the value of one-third of a dollar. This sun-dial bore two inscriptions, one Fugio3the other, MIND YOUR BUSINESS. The word Fugio gave a name to this currency, and the pieces were known as the "Fugio dollar," the " Fugio cent," and the " Fugio note." The cent was also called the "Franklin cent," and is so known by collectors to-day. This was through
22 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Franklin's connection with the coinage. The " Fugio note" is here shown, also a later use of a similar sun- dial design on a local note issued by the city of New York.
It will be recalled that Franklin had known much of the postal service of Great Britain before he
Fugio Note.
became postmaster-general for the American colonies under the crown. And he had lived long in London, where on the general post-office was a sun-dial with the motto, BE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS. I have never
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 23
doubted that it was entirely Franklin's taste which supplied to our new nation the sun-dial design and the motto, MIND YOUR BUSINESS. In this form, and the one on the London post-office, and in the form, BEGONE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS, it was found on several English sun-dials. The one in the Inner Temple owed its motto to a surly reply given to a dial-maker who asked at the Temple library, as he had been instructed, for " the motto for the new sun-
SIX CENTS
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Six Cent Note of City of New York,
dial, sir." " Begone about your business !" was the
testy answer of the only inmate of the library. And a very good motto it seemed to the dial-maker, and the Benchers also, after it was put up.
In the eighteenth century dials were an article of common manufacture in America, though 1 think never in large numbers. Seldom do we find them named in old tradesmen's lists. I have seen fifty- eight different articles enumerated in one pewterer's list, but sun-dials were not among them. Perhaps the fact that each dial was limited in its sphere - could not be used save in its own latitude — hin-
24 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
dered their production. In England and on the Continent people lived in close-lying towns; in Eng- land the variation of latitude could not be vast ; but in the new world all was different. Distances were great. And those distances were chiefly in latitude, — up and down the coast. Therefore, portable dials would be sought rather than fixed ones. There still exist in America, however, old soapstone moulds used for the casting of pewter sun-dials.
Ellicott Sun-dial.
The steatite mould of George Ellicott, of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is in good condition. He was a well-known maker of sun-dials and high case-clocks, --a son, I believe, of the engineer Ellicott who did so much of the laying out of the Federal city of Washington, and the District of Columbia. Here is a pewter dial with base and gnomon in one piece made recently in this cast. It is about five inches square ; is marked " 1779 G. E." The hours are in Roman numerals and " Lat 40 " is on the side of the gnomon. I own a much-worn pewter dial
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 25
with circular base, bearing the same initials and date. It was given me by a friend who purchased it in Bucks County and paid for the tradition that it was made by Ellicott, as it undoubtedly was.
I find that to many the sun-dial is an emblem and voice of some great sentiment or hope in life, or a distinct reminder of some scene or incident, often of childhood. Let me tell the story of Harriet Martineau's sun-dial as an example ; it can best be given in words from her Autobiography. She went with her sisters and brothers when she was seven years old to visit her grandfather. On the way thither the five children were amused by being told to guess what they would find standing in the mid- dle of the garden. On her arrival, rudely ignoring the happy welcome of the tearful old people, she insisted on seeing " the thing in the garden." She writes : —
" I could make nothing of it when I saw it. It was a large heavy stone sun-dial. It is worth this much mention for it was of immeasurable value to me. I could see its face only by raising myself on tiptoe on its step; and there, with my eyes level on the plate, did I watch and ponder, day after day, painfully forming my first clear conceptions of Time amidst a confusion of notions of day and night, and of the seasons, and of the weather. I loved that dial with a sort of superstition, and when nearly forty years after, I built a house for myself at Ambleside, my strong wish was to have this very dial for the platform below the terrace. But it was not to be had."
Another dial, however, she did have, and the story of its setting up runs thus, in her words : —
16 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
" A friend in London who knew my desire for a sun-dial and heard that I could not obtain the old one which had told me so important a story in my childhood, presented me with one to stand on the grass under my terrace wall and above the quarry which was already beginning to fill with shrubs and wild flowers. The design of the dial is beautiful — being a copy of an ancient font; and in grey granite, to accord with the grey-stone house above it. The motto was an important affair. A neighbour had one so perfect in its way as to eclipse a whole class, — the class of Bible-sayings about the shortness of life and the flight of time, - - ' The Night Cometh.' In asking my friends for suggestions, I told them of this, and they agreed that we could not approach this motto in the same direction. Some good Latin ones, to which I inclined, were put aside because I was besought, for what I considered good reasons, to have nothing but English. It has always been my way to ask advice very rarelv, and then to follow it. But on this occasion I preferred a motto of my own to all that were offered in English ; and Wordsworth gave it his emphatic approbation. ' Come ! Light ! Visit me ! ' stands emblaz- oned on my dial ; and it has ever been, I believe, as frequent and impressive a monitor to me as ever was any dial which bore warning of the fugacious nature of life and time."
I think no one can read these fine and forceful extracts without feeling a deep interest in this dial, and I am glad to present here the artistic photograph of it sent me by Miss Martineau's niece.
The sun-dial in the garden of Sir William Hum- phrey, Great Brington, Northamptonshire, has the same speaking motto, COME LIGHT ! VISIT ME. The great beauty of this dial-pedestal, and its lovely setting of tuberous Begonias is shown on page 29.
Sun-dial of Harriet Martineau, The Knoll, Ambleside, England.
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 27
To me the sun-dial ever recalls two incidental scenes in my life. The first, through some curious psychological twist, is one in which a sun-dial took no part whatever; it was the only time in my life when I felt alone in the world.
To few people and but seldom is it given to feel utterly alone with nothing but the sun and the earth. Richard Jeffries, in that perfect prose poem The Story of my Heart, tells of the pantheism of the hills ; of his sense of loneness on a hilltop, that the earth held him and pressed him and spoke to him, and he felt an emotion that was as if his whole life were poured out in a prayer. It was in mid- summer that a similar sense came to me as to that strange creature, Emily Dickinson : —
" There came a day at summer's full Entirely for me ;
I thought that such were for the saints, Where revelations be."
I had driven with my father to a remote farm, and we had gone into a half-evergreen pasture to gather from the abundance of exquisite Azaleas, when my father recalled that he had left an over- garment at the empty farm-house adown the hill, and he drove back to secure it, leaving me alone flower-gathering in the rocky hill-pasture.
There was not a house in sight, for an edging of fine old pine woods surrounded the pasture, and the tall tree-spires cut it off from the rest of the world and left it high on the hilltop, and the road thither was scarce more than an overgrown lane and soon
28 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
vanished into the trees. I had as I sat there wait- ing, a distinct impression, as did Jeffries, that I was alone in the world. My father would never return, I should never see mortal face again ; and I did not care to. I was so filled with the beauty of the scene, the perfume, the song of birds, above all the great heat and glow of that radiant sun of June that I was possessed with a sort of obsession ; an absolutely pagan sense of sun-worship and of the isolated com- pleteness of that beautiful moment — and I felt no desire for life beyond, either in this world or the next ; though, as the old poet Vaughan said, —
"I felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness."
All my thoughts and senses seemed emancipated. I was conscious to the keenest degree of what Shake- speare termed " my glassy essence." I cannot, of course, feel thus whenever I stand by a sun-dial ; but the dial always recalls this scene to my mind. It speaks with no uncertain voice of that after- noon when I was alone in the New England hill- pasture and in the whole world.
The second scene is not so remote in my life ; it was nearly fifteen years ago that I was shown a friend's sun-dial ; one of the few garden-dials then to be found in America. I saw it on one of those strangely warm and beautiful days which we have sometimes during the first weeks in April in New England, — an April which is often bleak as the first of March, and not wholly absolved from dread of snow flurries. These beautiful days of April are
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 29
like none other ; for the sun is so burning at mid- day and there is such a pervasive feeling of ten- tative greenness, though nothing is really green. I have shown this atmosphere to a wonderful degree for black and white in an illustration on
Sun-dial of Sir William Humphrey, Bart., Great Brington, North- amptonshire.
page 155 of my Old Time Gardens in a Lilac pic- ture entitled Opyn-tide, the Thought of Spring — " Whenne that flowres think on blowen." On such a day we suddenly find that there are Ladies' Delights in bloom as well as Snowdrops, and the
jo Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
quick ear catches the buzz of bees, — ever welcome and happy sound after months of snow and silence in the garden. There is an old Chinese saying, —
" Ere Man is aware That the Spring is here The Flowers have found it out."
And we can add, " The bees have found that the flowers are out." On this day in Opyn-tide we fol- lowed the loved sound of these humming bees around a Lilac corner, and there they were, sur- rounding the sun-dial, bumping against it in their heavy, benumbed first flight. And there - -open so wide in the hot sunshine that their glowing petals seemed fairly reflexed to the base of the stems, not only open but bent back to drink in the sunshine — were scores of beautiful purple and golden and snowy Crocus blossoms, planted in affection that the sun-dial might have the first flowering of spring.
There, by the sun-dial and the shining Crocus- cups, came to me a line of rare Ben Jonson's, —
" The World may find the Spring by following her,"
a line which might have been written for my mother. With such inner light did she know where flowers grew- -whether in garden, grove, or meadow, — so constantly was her path filled with flowers, that they seemed to throng lovingly around her rather than that she went to search for them.
" Here was she wont to go ! and here ! and here ! Just where these daisies, pinks, and violets grow, The world may find the Spring by following her. And where she went,, the flowers took thickest root."
The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 31
She ever gathered in gentle triumph the first- lings of spring, — the earliest Snowdrops, the little stunted Ladies' Delights, the half-frozen spires of Scilla. And she ever spied, ere we deemed them out of the frozen ground, the first glint of yellow Crocus.
So as I stood by this dial I had a picture in my heart ; the one which ever comes to me now as I stand by a garden-dial. I could see my mother's eager, bright-eyed, smiling face, as she leaned over the Crocus bed and listened to the murmurous hum of the bees as they buzzed, half-chilled, from flower to flower. " How do they know that winter is gone," she said, " when we scarce know it ourselves? Where have they been throughout the snow ? From whence do they come ? How do they know — who told them — that here in my garden these purple and yellow cups are opened for them ? '
" Ah, far away in some serener air
The eyes that loved them see a heavenly dawn,"
and I sigh as I turn from the sun-dial, but I read its motto : Lux ef Umbra Vicissim^ sed semper Amor
- LIGHT AND SHADOW BY TURNS, BUT ALWAYS LOVE.