The Happy Garden 



the world from China to Peru : my designs are 

 for my little plot of four acres. Thence comes 

 conflict in which I can by concentration, constant 

 effort, selection, elimination, and above all, by 

 compromise, concession, and yielding — as Mr. 

 Robinson and experience say we must — to Nature's 

 universal laws, enforce my will. There is a sort 

 of tacit chartei between us : each says to the 

 other : 



" Thus far and no farther shall you go." 

 If either oversteps the limit, the result is in 

 the one case chaos, in the other trim ugliness — 

 villadom. That is not to say that I believe Nature 

 to be inimical to man or me. The point of cleavage 

 comes, to my mind, in this : that Nature is far 

 too busy to notice me or to try to discover what 

 I am doing ; so, if I wish to maintain pleasant 

 relations with her, I am forced to try to find out 

 what she is up to, and, wherever necessary, to 

 adapt myself to her. . . . Perhaps that is rather 

 grudgingly stated : such adaptation is always 

 necessary. And, though it feels very emancipated 

 to think that I buy my seeds in little packets, and 

 bulbs by the score from Holland, and heaths from 

 Derbyshire, and trees , from Japan and America, 

 yet my slavery is really only the more profound, 

 for I have to discover what provision Nature makes 



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