VIII 



The Toy River 



The ideal dress for work in the garden is the tunic 

 worn by girls in the gymnasium. This, with stout 

 knee-pads for protection against the damp ground 

 — for women can never, like "men, do all their 

 planting and weeding stooping — is business-like 

 and comfortable. I have not yet had, I confess, 

 enterprise enough to adopt it, and my customary 

 garb is a short skirt of serge bought for four-and- 

 sixpence, ready-made in Manchester. My con- 

 science, when it is allowed to speak, tells me that 

 it is the product of sweating, and, when I listen, 

 I am very sorry, though my sorrow takes no prac- 

 tical shape. Once one begins to think of the 

 injustice to others necessitated by his own existence 

 then there is no end to it, and it seems absolutely 

 certain that one ought to be abolished. . . . And 

 I am often almost sincerely convinced of the neces- 

 sity of my own abolition, and that I have no right 

 to sit down in my pine-wood, while others are ground 

 down that I may have food and clothing and the 



i39 



