Gardener's Pride 



is no trickery in the garden. The river is a sham, 

 there is a sham butterfly on the window and a dish 

 of sham fruit in the hall, but these are honest shams. 

 They ask to be admired only as shams. Now there 

 are sham books and sham pictures which ask to 

 be admired as the real thing, and very often they 

 succeed, and it is notorious that sham artists and 

 sham men of genius are very prosperous ; but a 

 sham garden is inconceivable in these days. Nature 

 herself is the medium with which the artist works, 

 and Nature is, above all things, honest. She takes 

 dreadful revenges for lapses of taste and any 

 attempt to dodge difficulties. 



Have you forgotten London ? It should be easy, 

 for the lie of the land assists you. Between the 

 house and the railway station are two hills and a 

 valley. London and all its works fall away behind 

 you, as you breast the top of the first hill from the 

 station. In front of you are miles of fairly wild 

 country : pines, moors, rivers, hills, heather, lakes. 

 Here and there Cockneydom has left a dirty thumb- 

 mark on it, but that is easily avoided, and with us, 

 in our clearing of four acres, you are as free as you 

 may be in all England. There are people who find 

 the crowds of pines as oppressive as the millions 

 of people in London ; but often that passes, and 

 the charm of the woods comes over them. They 



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