The Happy Garden 



Is the garden in keeping with the country ? 

 Is the art of it sufficiently in sympathetic contrast 

 with it ? Is it arranged with such skill as to 

 justify the purloining of the acres of wood ? All 

 things considered, is it so right as to seem inevit- 

 able ? ... In fine, am I a fit and proper person to 

 live in such a country and impose my will on it ? 



If not, perish the house and every flower in the 

 place. Let the pines resume their dominion, and 

 I will go and live Avith Jane in her Kentish suburb, 

 or, worse, with Elisabeth in her flat in the Adelphi. 



It was not, though it might have been, my 

 pines that were in George Meredith's mind when 

 he wrote : 



" A wind sways the pines, 



And below 

 Not a breath of wild air, 

 Still as the mosses that glow 

 On the flooring and over the lines 

 Of the roots here and there. 

 The pine-tree drops its dead: 

 They are quiet as under the sea. 

 Overhead, overhead 

 Rushes life in a race, 

 As the clouds the clouds chase : 



And we go, 

 And we drop like the fruits of the tree, 



Even we, 



Even so. 



i 



He loved the pines, and used to envy me for 

 living among them, though Box Hill was beautiful 



116 



