n do everything, especially when
one gets ambitious in a London garden. The same man who did the plumbing
work of the fountain also did the stone work. He built the palace--it
were an affectation of modesty to call it a kennel--in which the
Pekinese puppy lives when it is not eating the Iceland poppies. He
painted the garden seats. He is an expert in the removal of the American
blight. He has diagnosed that my wild cherry is bark-bound, and wishes
me to let him cut a slit in it, but I dare not. He is wonderful and he
is inexpensive.

The public fountain is always placed in an open space. There is a
tendency even among quite decent private people to use the fountain as a
lawn decoration. I like it better among trees myself; it is more
classical. It recalls more lines of Horace. The fountain must never be
allowed to play on a dull or cold day. And if you yourself are doing
something strenuous in the garden, it is irksome to have the fountain
playing while you are working. The fountain belongs to sunlight and
repose, and the garden that is not a place of rest is no garden. The
purr of the lawn-mower and the tinkle of falling water are the two most
soporific sounds in existence. They should be used by the medical
profession in the cure of insomnia. I do not know why, but people
generally seem to be a little proud of insomnia. They like to tell you
how many times in the night they heard the clock strike. One will do
almost anything to be interesting, undeterred by failure in it. This, I
suppose, it is which drives some to story-writing.

You may have chanced to hear the story of

THE LITTLE DEATH

There was once (but it must have happened a long time ago and in some
very distant island) a race of people who never slept. Occasionally they
became tired and lay down, but they never closed their eyes and never
lost consciousness. They had never heard of sleep. They had never
learned it. And in consequence they did a great deal of work, but they
died very young. They were quite happy about it of course, because one
never misses what one has never had. There may be something quite as
sweet as sleep which we ourselves do not miss, only because we do not
know about it.

One day a shipwrecked man was cast up on the shore. These were
hospitable people, and they took him up to the King's palace and
entertained him. And when night came, after he had feasted and drunk,
the King said: "And now what pleasure can we offer you? Would