My New Zealand Garden 31 



privilege awaiting them, and many responded to 

 their call. 



My wild life ended when my darling mother 

 died, and I was sent to live in a town, all properly, 

 with an aunt; and ever since I have so sym- 

 pathized with birds in cages that I always feel 

 inclined to open their doors. I did my five years' 

 penal servitude patching up my education, and 

 then married. One of my poor dear brothers 

 I only saw again when he came to die at our 

 house a few years afterwards, the other also 

 died young, and had I been a boy, I believe I 

 should have been with them now. 



It is very remarkable that we never dream of 

 the dead as dead at least, I don't, and many 

 others say the same. I have tried to construe this 

 into a reassuring hope of some kind, building 

 vague castles in the air. I like to try and imagine 

 myself where I fain would be, and in raptures 

 saying, ' No wonder we could not dream of them 

 as dead;' and with all mysteries cleared away, 

 easily realizing how that they were not ' the dead 

 to bury their dead ' ; and then our unalloyed 

 happiness casting oblivion over the absent ones 

 misty, harmless day-dreams, I hope. The well- 

 known typical allusion to our future state in the 

 career of the butterfly and its three changes is 

 very pleasant, I think. First the caterpillar walk- 

 ing the earth, seeking its staff of life ; then in its 



