The Happy Garden 



From much and overmuch reading of books she has 

 come to regard people as things definite between the 

 first word, which is birth, and the last word, which 

 is death. She shuts her eyes to energy, and drops 

 the thing for the symbol under a mistaken notion 

 that she cannot have both. Both are absolutely 

 necessary. The symbol is useless without the thing, 

 and the thing cannot be brought into action and 

 practical existence without the symbol. Elisabeth, 

 in fact, can only see one side of a thing, one side 

 only even of a coin. 



As an illustration of what I mean, when I had 

 led them from the cherry-walk to the tree lupins, 

 and had made Jane sniff their honey-laden scent, 

 Elisabeth drew herself up very stiffly and waggled 

 her neck inside her hard linen collar, and said : 



" Yes, I know, it is all very well, this old- 

 fashioned talk about the Sense of Beauty : but 

 what I want to know is why nothing is ever said 

 about the Sense of Ugliness ? " 



She was delivered into my hands. 



" The point is," said I, " that you cannot 

 have a Sense of Ugliness without a Sense of 

 Beauty." 



Elisabeth made no reply, and Jane sniffed 

 luxuriously at the tree lupins, and I explained my 

 theory of economy at greater length. 



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