470 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. 



But this feeling, unknown to him before, broke out in 

 his gentian work. He told Hooker, ' I can't express the 

 delight I have in them." It continued undiminished when 

 once he settled in the new house and laid out a garden. 

 His especial love was for the rockery of Alpines, many of 

 which came from Sir J. Hooker. 



Here, then, he threw himself into gardening with char- 

 acteristic ardour. He described his position as a kind of 

 mean between the science of the botanist and the empiricism 

 of the working gardener. He had plenty to suggest, but his 

 gardener, like so many of his tribe, had a rooted mistrust 

 of any gardening lore culled from books. ' Books ? They'll 

 say anything in them books." And he shared, moreover, 

 that common superstition, perhaps really based upon a ques- 

 tion of labour, that watering of flowers, unnecessary in wet 

 weather, is actively bad in dry. So my father's chief occu- 

 pation in the garden was to march about with a long hose, 

 watering, and watering especially his alpines in the upper 

 garden and along the terraces lying below the house. The 

 saxifrages and the creepers on the house were his favourite 

 plants. When he was not watering the one he would be 

 nailing up the other, for the winds of Eastbourne are re- 

 markably boisterous, and shrivel up what they do not blow 

 down. ' I believe I shall take to gardening," he writes, a 

 few months after entering the new house, ' if I live long 

 enough. I have got so far as to take a lively interest in the 

 condition of my shrubs, which have been awfully treated by 

 the long cold." 



From this time his letters contain many references to 

 his garden. He is astonished when his gardener asks leave 

 to exhibit at the local show, but delighted with his pluck. 

 Hooker jestingly sends him a plant ' which will flourish 

 on any dry, neglected bit of wall, so I think it will just 

 suit you." 



Great improvements have been going on (he writes in 1892), 

 and the next time you come you shall walk in the " avenue " of 

 four box-trees. Only five are to be had for love or money at 

 present, but there are hopes of a sixth, and then the " avenue " 

 will be full ten yards long! Figures vous qa! 



