MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 161 



the healthy growing tree with your 

 pruning-knife many a sunny morning ! 

 That is happiness. Then, if you know 

 it, you are drinking the very wine of 

 life ; and when the sweet juices of the 

 earth mount the limbs, and flow down 

 the tender stem, ripening and reddening 

 the pendent fruit, you feel that you 

 somehow stand at the source of things, 

 and have no unimportant share in the 

 processes of Nature. Enter, at this mo 

 ment, boy the destroyer, whose office 

 is that of preserver as well ; for, though 

 he removes the fruit from your sight, it 

 remains in your memory immortally ripe 

 and desirable. The gardener needs all 

 these consolations of a high philosophy. 



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