46 A GARDEN DIARY 



we please. Yearning to show that our spirits 

 are above all trammels, that we are as free 

 as the birds in the air, we nevertheless all 

 sit in identical armchairs, eat the food the 

 cooks provide us, and in most other respects 

 exhibit about as much originality as so many 

 stair-rods. 



It is only necessary to consider what happens 

 every day of the week in the garden to per- 

 ceive that this is the case. We have adopted 

 the most independent line possible ; we have 

 vowed that our gardens shall be natural ones, or 

 nothing. We adore flowery wildernesses, we 

 declare. We want our plants to grow as Nature 

 intended them to do, and not as the hireling 

 gardener does. We intend to put a limit to the 

 eternal bolstering up of our soil with all sorts 

 of extraneous elements ; above all we will have 

 nothing to say to the clipping of our shrubs 

 into unreal shapes, nor yet to the planting of 

 our bulbs, and other flowering plants into lines, 

 squares, and parallelograms, but all shall be a 

 melting and a blending of one harmonious form 

 into another ; every detail, as far as the eye 

 can reach, being subordinated to the larger 

 and more important spirit of the landscape as 

 a whole. 



So we say ! And yet, after the flag of free- 

 dom has been thus ostentatiously raised, what 

 happens ? As often as not we find ourselves, 



