r-worked. In the
refreshment-room at a London terminus late at night I have seen a
barmaid collect the sprigs of wilted parsley from the tired sandwiches
and sad hard eggs, and put it all in a teacup with a little water. It
was heart-breaking to think that that parsley would have to go to work
again the next day. But also it presented the barmaid in a new light. It
was so foreign to her abnormal stateliness and her unnatural gaiety. It
tempted one to believe that after all she was human.

Sitting here in the shade on a hot summer day, with an Austrian brier in
full bloom within a few yards of me, I wonder why on earth I ever
neglected this garden.

In the first place it had been neglected before. I think for some two
years previously a jobbing gardener had called one day every week on
purpose to neglect it. Therefore it seemed hopeless to do anything. In
the second place it was too rectilineal. It was an exact rectangle,
surrounded by straight paths and bisected by one straight path. In the
third place I bought a book about gardening for amateurs and it
frightened me. It began just about the point where I shall leave off if
I live to be a hundred years old.

And then, neglected though it was, the garden made its appeal to me. All
round it are tall trees--elm, and chestnut, and wild cherry, and plane,
and sycamore. It offered me grateful shade on a hot afternoon, and I had
done nothing to deserve it. In the springtime there were mauve blossoms
on the lilac, and golden trails on the laburnum, that I had never
earned. Later, tall hollyhocks, lavish sunflowers, crowded Michaelmas
daisies, added their reproach. I became uneasy. I went out and bought
things, such as bast, and fertiliser, and green stakes. I began to
wander about the garden, thinking what could be done with it. By the
next summer the garden had got a fair hold of me. A man who can learn
something fresh is not old, wherefore I am not old, but it surprises me
that one of my youth should have learned so amazingly little about a
garden in the time.

I began to see encouraging factors. I had not to think about fruit and
vegetables. I had not to think about a greenhouse, because the garden
has no greenhouse. It has not even got a frame. I shall buy one next
year, or possibly the year after. London is simply crawling with
florists, and for a few shillings you can buy things all ready to put
in. The shilling that goes to the taxicab driver is gone for
ever--sacri