164 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



trated catalogues, where all the pears are drawn 

 perfect in form, and of extra size, and at that 

 exact moment between ripenesss and decay 

 which it is so impossible to hit in practice. 

 Fruit cannot be raised on this earth to taste as 

 you imagine those pears would taste. For years 

 you have this pleasure, unalloyed by any disen- 

 chanting reality. How you watch the tender 

 twigs in spring, and the freshly forming bark, 

 hovering about 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 moment boy the destroyer, whose 

 office is that of preserver as well ; for, though 



