WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 133 



for it as we do for the opera ; but the condi- 

 tions under which it is to be enjoyed are 

 rather dear. Among them I should name a 

 good suit of clothes, including some trifling 

 ornament, not including back hair for one 

 sex, or the parting of it in the middle for 

 the other. I should add also a good dinner, 

 well cooked and digestible ; and the cost of 

 a fair education, extended, perhaps, through 

 generations in which sensibility and love of 

 beauty grew. What I mean is that if a 

 man is hungry and naked, and half a savage, 

 or with the love of beauty undeveloped in 

 him, a sunset is thrown away on him : so 

 that it appears that the conditions of the 

 enjoyment of a sunset are as costly as any- 

 thing in our civilization. 



Of course there is no such thing as abso- 

 lute value in this world. You can only esti- 

 mate what a thing is worth to you. Does 

 gardening in a city pay ? You might as 

 well ask if it pays to keep hens, or a trot- 

 ting-horse, or to wear a gold ring, or to keep 

 your lawn cut, or your hair cut. It is as 



