i io JUNE 



name is of the sort which cannot help itself, and 

 this must be regarded as a defect and not as a 

 beauty. 



But if the poet sometimes rouses in me the spirit 

 of contradiction, the gardener takes a mean revenge 

 by trying to mystify his readers just as they think 

 that they are getting on nicely. His garden fills 

 one with envy, not only because there seem to be 

 no failures in it, but also on account of its aspect, 

 which varies apparently to suit the flora of different 

 climes. Its orientation is certainly a little difficult 

 to understand, but of course I am quite prepared to 

 ascribe the difficulty to my own stupidity, and to 

 believe that occasionally it slopes from north-east 

 to south-west, and again that it looks south-east, 

 simply because the gardener tells me so. But even 

 this readjustment of Nature's aspects will not quite 

 account for all the wonders that are in that garden. 

 On the 3Oth of May the gardener's wood is covered 

 with primroses, and this is not mentioned as an 

 out-of-the-way state of things, but is given as a 

 mere matter of fact. I, who have not his gift of 

 extending the seasons to keep my garden in beauty, 

 have indeed seen primroses on the 3Oth of May, 

 but I have never had the luck of beholding a wood 

 in the south of England "diapered with them" on 

 that date. I can only believe and sigh for my own 

 more limited opportunities. On the same date the 

 gardener describes his tulips as having closed their 

 petals for the night. Though it is a little late for 

 Dutch tulips, he might persuade us to recognise an 

 equal latitude for them as for the primroses but 

 that he has informed us in a previous chapter that 



