238 A GARDEN DIARY 



thought are equally fluid ; few admit of greater 

 variety ; more diversity of mood ; more ranging 

 from topic to topic. Possibly the most satis- 

 factory of all its developments is when it enables 

 us to follow some well-beloved pursuit, keeping 

 pace with its minutest ramifications, losing our- 

 selves, as it were, in its existence, and thereby 

 evading half those irritating points, half those 

 wounding asperities that belong to every human 

 lot. Amongst such beloved and healing pur- 

 suits that of gardening stands prominently 

 forward. I have been assured that there are 

 superior persons by whom it is held in exceed- 

 ingly low repute ; who regard it as a symptom, 

 indeed, of mental degeneration, and, as a 

 resource, below stamp-collecting, and about on 

 a par with the acquisition of the idiot stitch. 

 Were it my lot to be acquainted with any such 

 superior persons there is one punishment that 

 I must confess I should dearly love to bestow 

 upon them ; which is that they should first 

 desperately need the comfort of such a solace, 

 and afterwards upon due probation and peni- 

 tence that they should come to find it! Few 

 ideas are more bigoted, more essentially narrow 

 and foolish, than this one about the elevating, 

 or the non-elevating effect of our pursuits. It 

 is upon a par with the equally pestilent notion 

 that it is the narrowness of our lives, or the 

 obscurity of our lots, that keeps our swelling souls 



