GARDENS IN LITERATURE 



frequently asked, and never, so far as I know, satisfac- 

 torily answered. He commonly spends his seventy 

 years, if so many are given him, in getting ready to 

 enjoy himself. How many hours, how many minutes, 

 does one get of that pure content which is happiness? 

 I do not mean laziness, which is always discontent; but 

 that serene enjoyment, in which all the natural senses 

 have easy play, and the unnatural ones have a holiday. 

 There is probably nothing which has so tranquilizing an 

 effect, and leads into such content, as gardening. By 

 gardening I do not mean that insane desire to raise veg- 

 etables which some have, but the philosophical occupa- 

 tion of contact with the earth, and companionship with 

 gently growing things and patient processes ; that exer- 

 cise which soothes the spirit and developes the deltoid 

 muscles. . . . In half an hour I can hoe myself right away 

 from this world, as we commonly see it, into a large 

 place . . . the mind broods like a hen on eggs ... I 

 begin to know what the joy of the grapevine is in run- 

 ning up the trellis, which is like the joy of a squirrel in 

 running up a tree . . . we all have something in our 

 nature that requires contact with the earth." 



A good deal of healthy philosophy was developed in 

 that German garden planted by Elizabeth in a couple of 

 volumes that bear a lot of visiting, rather a salty and vig- 

 orous philosophy, but well soaked in fun. And there are 

 countless other records of the wisdom found in the culti- 

 vation or observation of growing things in ordered ways, 



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