Literary Tea Offers Taste Of The Past

As cyberhype gathers momentum, the devoted reader could be forgiven for succumbing to it - to gloomily accepting the much-plugged idea that the book is dead and that our reading matter in future will consist of little more than cryptic runes such as http://www.com.

But just as the despairing reader comes up for air for the last time, someone always seems to throw a lifebelt. On Saturday, it was thrown by the Parrish Art Museum, which, as a thank-you to the benefactors of its Landscape Pleasures gardening weekend, gave a literary tea.

Yes, a literary tea - that artifact of a time when life moved more slowly, books were gold, and courtesy was a universal currency - with eminent readers, daffodils in full bloom, and cucumber sandwiches and scones with Devonshire cream.

Eminent Readers

It was held at the Sagaponack house of Maria and Peter Matthiessen, and the readers were Mr. Mathiessen, Robert Hughes (whose wife, Victoria, thought of the idea), Anne Raver, Mac Griswold, Ethne Clark, and Robert Dash.

Trudy Kramer, the director of the museum, explained how the Landscape Pleasures series came about after she first saw the museum's East End landscape paintings and realized that this was a place where art and landscape are inextricably linked. The event is now in its 14th year and provides one day of garden lectures and one day of garden tours in June.

Ms. Raver, who writes about gardening for The New York Times, opened the readings.

"I was told, 'You're going to be first because we know that you're going to read about gardens, and we're not sure about the others,' " she said. "But I'm going to read to you about my dog."

Elegy To Her Dog

And she did. She read an elegy to Molly, who seldom left her side for 14 years and eventually was buried, wrapped in a tablecloth, under the last of the summer's roses.

Mr. Hughes, Time magazine's art critic and the author of many books, claimed to be the only person present who didn't know anything about gardening, a claim which was hotly disputed by Mr. Matthiessen, who insisted he knew even less. Mr. Hughes read from his newly published book "American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America."

The book grew out of an eight-part series to be broadcast on public television in May and tells how a romantic involvement with nature led to landscape becoming the primary mode of expression in American painting. Without history to draw upon, or great heroes to paint, he explained, the amazing grandeur of the country's untouched landscape came to symbolize America for artists.

This pious identification with nature, Mr. Hughes said, ran along the lines that "the creator put the Grand Canyon in America and then put Americans there to look at it." That passionate scrutiny of nature still continues, Mr. Hughes said, only now "10 million people a year visit the Grand Canyon for 'a wilderness experience.' "

Ms. Griswold, who teaches and lectures on garden design and history and wrote "The Golden Age of American Gardens," among other books, read from a work in progress about George Washington and his gardens at Mount Vernon.

In these days, when we like to know both the rough and the smooth, the flaws as well as the brilliance of our great figures, George Washington remains a puzzle. His own awareness of his heroic status insured that we are left only with the public George that he wished known.

"The approachable George," said Ms. Griswold, "can only be found at Mount Vernon."

Himalayan Trek

Here the great man spent 47 years digging and planting and creating his gardens (admittedly with the help of 90 slaves), losing his legendary temper, and having plenty of horticultural ups and downs: In 1785 he writes of planting seed from 200 different Chinese species - they all died.

Then it was Mr. Matthiessen's turn. He read a stirring account of part of a 250-mile walk in the Nepalese Himalayas along the course of the Suligad, whose upper reaches he believes to be the most beautiful river anywhere.

Each day's travel deeper into the foothills of the mountains seemed to take a corresponding step back through history, until it was as if they were in the Middle Ages.

"The local people didn't know if they were Tibetan or Nepalese," said Mr. Matthiessen, explaining that they had so little contact with the outside world the concept had no meaning for them.

"Time To Move On"

The forests they passed through on the river's banks were disconcertingly like those of the East Coast, but just different enough to be unsettling. They evoked nostalgia, not for home, but for lost innocence.

A fierce wind blew at their backs. When they reached a spot in the narrowing valley where a giant waterfall plunged from the heights, the wind was so strong that the plume of falling water was blown up and away before it ever reached the ground.

And then it was down to earth for some real gardening talk from Ethne Clark, a writer who is the author of the best-selling "Herb Garden Design," "English Country Gardens," and "Gardening With Foliage Plants."

Ms. Clark, who was born in America but now lives and gardens in England, said it was time to rediscover the natural landscape, use foliage as the backbone of the garden, and put less emphasis on flowers.

"It's time to move on from Gertrude Jekyll," she said, in ringing tones.

Bob Dash, artist, author, and gardener, wound up the afternoon with a fictional anecdote about two warring gardeners - organic versus non-organic - who are also man and wife. Mr. Dash, whose own gardens in Sagaponack are open to the public and whose book of essays, "On the Making of Madoo," will soon be published by Random House, delivered his amusing piece with perfect timing and droll aplomb.

As one member of the distinguished audience remarked, the only act that could effectively follow that was tea, hot scones, and homemade lemon curd.