OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



Poor innocent as I was, and country bred, I had no idea 

 of the meaning of the word. 



I was soon to discover. Funerals are of more than daily 

 occurrence in a mighty city. Oh ! the processions that 1 

 stared down upon from the drawing-room window, through 

 the fog and the rain gloom generally enveloped that centre 

 of manufactures! I was left long hours alone/ no one 

 but an impertinent French maid with whom I could 

 exchange my ideas. The proceedings in the Necropolis 

 had a hypnotic attraction for me. I began to feel quite 

 certain that it was gaping for my poor little bones, and 

 that they must inevitably rest there. Finally, I extracted 

 a solemn oath that, whatever happened, this should not be 

 the case a promise momentarily soothing, but far from 

 lifting the weight of depression that pressed upon me. 

 To add a touch of revolting comedy to my experiences, 

 the owner of the house returned abruptly from his holi- 

 day and took possession of the locked-up room for an 

 afternoon, for the purpose of extracting all the teeth of a 

 special friend. I fled from the house in terror, when Elise 

 <who hated me> informed me with much gusto of the im- 

 pending excitement. Needless to say, however, she re- 

 galed me with every groan on my return, and all the 

 details she had been able to pick up from the parlourmaid- 

 left by the dentist, en parenthese who had counted the 

 teeth. 



The nightmare shrinking from death and its dreadful ap- 

 panages is one that is mercifully passing from me. But I 

 envy those who can take the great tragic facts of exist- 

 ence, not only with simplicity, but with a kind of enjoyable 

 interest. 

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