's own soul from the soul of
the person sitting in the next chair. I am speaking of comparative
strangers, people who are forced to stay a certain time by the
eccentricities of trains, and in whose presence you grope about after
common interests and shrink back into your shell on finding that you
have none. Then a frost slowly settles down on me and I grow each minute
more benumbed and speechless, and the babies feel the frost in the air
and look vacant, and the callers go through the usual form of wondering
who they most take after, generally settling the question by saying that
the May baby, who is the beauty, is like her father, and that the two
more or less plain ones are the image of me, and this decision, though
I know it of old and am sure it is coming, never fails to depress me as
much as though I heard it for the first time. The babies are very little
and inoffensive and good, and it is hard that they should be used as a
means of filling up gaps in conversation, and their features pulled to
pieces one by one, and all their weak points noted and criticised,
while they stand smiling shyly in the operator's face, their very smile
drawing forth comments on the shape of their mouths; but, after all, it
does not occur very often, and they are one of those few interests one
has in common with other people, as everybody seems to have babies. A
garden, I have discovered, is by no means a fruitful topic, and it is
amazing how few persons really love theirs--they all pretend they
do, but you can hear by the very tone of their voice what a lukewarm
affection it is. About June their interest is at its warmest, nourished
by agreeable supplies of strawberries and roses; but on reflection I
don't know a single person within twenty miles who really cares for his
garden, or has discovered the treasures of happiness that are buried in
it, and are to be found if sought for diligently, and if needs be with
tears. It is after these rare calls that I experience the only moments
of depression from which I ever suffer, and then I am angry at myself, a
well-nourished person, for allowing even a single precious hour of life
to be spoil: by anything so indifferent. That is the worst of being fed
enough, and clothed enough, and warmed enough, and of having everything
you can reasonably desire--on the least provocation you are made
uncomfortable and unhappy by such abstract discomforts as being shut out
from a nearer approach to your neighbou