The Happy Garden 



As it is, with the peat garden, outside the 

 cement, a few bulbs, a few lilies, a hundred heaths, 

 the Adami laburnum, and the catalpa, the expense 

 was nothing, and four pounds would cover the 

 " dem total," as Mr. Mantalini would have called 

 it, and for this " ridiculously small sum " the design 

 of the garden was accomplished, and, with the toy- 

 river, the lake, the bridge, the tea-house, and the 

 succession of flowers, a place of enchantment was 

 provided — the fantasy and poetry to the prose of the 

 rest of the garden : just such a garden — in miniature 

 — as that in which Heine first read " Don Quixote": 



" And, as I pronounced every word aloud, being 

 still unpractised in reading, birds and trees, stream, 

 and flowers, were able to hear everything, and, as 

 such innocent creatures, like children, know nothing 

 of the irony of the world, they too, even as I, took 

 everything in earnest and wept with me for the 

 sorrows of the unhappy knight, and an old veteran 

 oak sobbed, and the waterfall wagged his white 

 beard the more and seemed to cry out upon the 

 wickedness of the world. ..." 



But, in the brown garden, it is possible to forget 

 the wickedness of the world, or, rather, to feel that 

 it is no great matter after all, since, with all the 

 muddle, and confusion, and meanness, and gossip- 

 ing, and worrying about other people's business, 



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