238 IDLEHURST : 



all save a late plot ; all next year's crops that start 

 on this side of New Year are sown and planted. If 

 there is a Sabbath in the gardener's calendar, I enjoy 

 it now. 



An hour such as this repays a world of painful 

 cares. The gardener knows consolations which must 

 fail in many a loftier "mystery." There is a time, 

 I think, to the literary and artistic workman when 

 horrid doubts grow, that the critics were perhaps 

 right after all ; and when the large editions or the 

 great canvas shrink ghastly in some keener atmo- 

 sphere. But no breath of conscience can touch the 

 gardener's results ; those silvery lettuces cold in 

 morning dew, those great sunburnt Beurres, those 

 first Ashleaves of the year, are facts immutable by 

 the course of Time. A novel may turn to outmoded 

 chatter, a play become a shuddering memory ; but 

 who challenges the Frontignacs or the Moor Parks 

 that were good ten years ago? I would have all 

 men gardeners ; then when Treaties are torn up and 

 Parties wrecked, Philosophies superseded and Art 

 damned, there would remain a solid ground of satis- 

 faction to each one, cauliflowers that cannot be im- 

 peached, pippins whose aroma endures. In the 

 borders the double dahlias, those Philistines of the 



