The Happy Garden 



few luxuries that I need, and above all the price- 

 less boon of leisure. Why should I be free to choose 

 my own work and to do it in my own time ? 



I confess that I thoroughly enjoy these specu- 

 lations (especially at moments when the weather 

 is oppressive, or the garden has been ravaged by 

 some pest) until I begin to perceive that they are 

 leading me towards Social Reform, and those 

 amiable people who wish to abolish everything but 

 themselves, beginning with human nature, which, 

 being human, they detest, and are quite deter- 

 mined that everybody shall have a thin gruel-fed 

 happiness, cut to their pattern, and not the sort 

 of happiness which they take because it is their 

 nature to. 



The point I am coming to is the consideration 

 of Leisure, and the only question which seems to 

 me to arise is this : Are you, or are you not, 

 worthy of Leisure ? 



That can only be answered by Life. In this 

 world either you have Leisure, or you haven't : 

 either you are ground down in the machine or you 

 are not. If you are worthy of Leisure you will 

 have it by hook or by crook, and money or no 

 money will matter very little. True Leisure is 

 not bought with money, which blows where it 

 listeth. It does not follow that those whom 



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