CHAPTER X 



A NEW OUTLOOK 



Oct. I WANT a word — a friendly, confidential word — with 

 garden-loving folk who are sensitive to external sur- 

 roundings, and influenced by every passing variation 

 in the weather. There is no play on the face of Nature, 

 however slight, which they do not observe. If their 

 august mistress smiles they are elated, if she frowns they 

 are sad. Human beings who are constituted like this 

 are affected by a hundred things which the mass never 

 so much as sees. They comprise some of the finest 

 spirits of the nation. Kind, tender-hearted, with souls 

 tuned to an abhorrence of what is cruel and wrong, 

 they feel the rough, jagged edges of the world acutely. 



People of this class sometimes tell me that the 

 autumn oppresses them. They cannot enjoy their 

 gardens when vegetation is decaying. They cannot 

 find pleasure in country walks when the leaves are 

 coming down and the fields are swathed in mist. They 

 complain of lowered health, too : an intermittent heart- 

 beat, the dull gnawing of neuritis. They actually speak, 

 at the absurdly youthful age of sixty-five, of growing 

 old! 



Perhaps there are some among my readers who are 

 constituted similarly to these poor sensitive souls. 

 Will they forgive me if I say that I fully sympathise 

 with and comprehend them ? And will they let me 

 assure them that if they try and understand the garden 

 344 



