THE HAPPY GARDEN 



I 



Gardener's Pride 



To live in London and to possess a garden in the 

 country is to be in the position of an Anglo-Indian 

 mother whose children are in England. In the 

 winter and spring you snatch a Sunday here and 

 there to see how your flower-children are growing 

 up ; all is not well : you have fearful presenti- 

 ments : they are not what you had planned and 

 dreamed and hoped ! Your gardener crushes you 

 with his expert professional knowledge : he dis- 

 counts your enthusiasm as severely as a tutor 

 discounts a mother's love. Summer comes. The 

 flowers are beautiful, but the garden is not really 

 your garden — it is not intimate ; the gardener has 

 provided a brave show, like hundreds of other 

 brave shows, but the whole lacks form, atmosphere, 

 breeding, manners — what you will. Here and 

 there it is as though the flowers were shy and timid, 

 as though the spirit had been bullied out of them 



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