The Happy Garden 



know your place without being blatant about it. 

 That is really the only law we observe. Everybody 

 and everything in its place, and when by accident 

 we get out of it, the force of habit is there to swing 

 us back. Human nature — and dog nature and 

 plant nature — is so elastic. 



You, Jane, shall have no difficulty, for directly 

 you show signs of getting out of hand you shall 

 cease to exist. You have neither past nor future, 

 and only such present as I choose to give you. 



(Jane grows very meek. She is an odd little 

 person ; very ordinary, very like everybody, and 

 very unlike what everybody likes to think she — 

 or he — is. That is to say, that she is not at all 

 romantic. She is rather pretty, though she might 

 easily be prettier ; rather intelligent, though she 

 just lacks confidence ; in fact, she is the sort of 

 person who thinks of the right repartee an hour 

 after she ought to have said it — which is so like 

 everybody. And that makes her an admirable 

 audience, for she only asks to admire, and if she 

 can admire honestly, then she will have one of the 

 rarest pleasures granted to mortal woman, and also 

 to all the imaginary creatures with whom we sur- 

 round ourselves ; all the queer creatures who, in 

 mad, impossible ways, have the experiences which 

 we ourselves escape.) 



26 



