CHAPTER XI 

 The Lunatic Asylum 



IN the days of my early youth a vast clump, or so it then 

 seemed to me, of evergreens occupied the space which now 

 forms my home for demented plants. It was the sort of 

 planting one sees at one end of a London square. Portugal 

 Laurels there were, and the still more objectionable 

 Common Laurel ; Laurustinus bushes, which in showery 

 weather exhale an odour of dirty dog-kennel and an even 

 dirtier dog ; leprously spotted Aucubas and Privet jostled 

 one another round the feet of two Weymouth Pines and 

 a dead Yew covered with Ivy, the whole dismal crew being 

 rendered more awful and uninteresting by having all their 

 attempts to show any beauty that might be inherent in 

 their natural manner of growth nipped in the bud by the 

 garden shears. This agglomeration consequently bore the 

 semblance of a magnified dish of Spinach with a few trees 

 emerging from the top, where a giant poached Roc's egg 

 or two might have lain. A thick wall of such snubbed 

 greenery of course had a hollow interior of dead branches, 

 a playground ever desired by the child, and never per- 

 mitted by the nurses and guardians, who foresaw the black 

 hands and faces, torn clothes, and missing buttons that 

 would result from a scramble in that unknown wilderness. 

 Most of this has now been cleared away, but the Wey- 

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