RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 203 



to do, and it draws pictures for me on that flexible 

 canvas, my imagination. But today it has harked 

 back to the first December, five years ago, and it 

 bids me dwell on memories rather than on antici- 

 pations. I see what the years have worked out for 

 me, under God's sunshine and rain, on this once 

 forbidding and now attractive spot. I see how my 

 vague ideals have been clarified, how my hardly 

 less vague desires have been changed, in the years 

 of outdoor effort and thought. I am keenly sensible 

 of the kindness of better gardeners who have been 

 patient with my crudities, recognizing, perhaps, the 

 inner striving in the right direction. My mistakes ! 

 How many they have been, and how vexatious 

 when discovered, until I learned to recognize them 

 as actual onward steps, to laugh at them and their 

 maker, and to arrive at the knowledge that I was 

 quite certain to keep on making garden errors, but 

 might hope, with sufficient thoughtful humility, 

 to avoid making the same error twice. 



Looking backward, I note the transition from 

 reading books about gardens to doing work in one 

 of them, and how it gradually came to pass that 

 I read less, and only of standard substantialities 

 that might be termed principles, because I found 

 that I must work out my own garden salvation, 

 and work it out, if not with fear and trembling, 



