XI 



Sun Rose and Spiraea 



Let me confess to direst failure ! 



Near the bridge in the lawn is a sunk garden 

 that was once like a sarcophagus. Failure was 

 written all over it. In the earliest days, to the 

 right of it was an avenue of apple trees, and in 

 my inexperience I had a notion of breaking up the 

 wide expanse of lawn by a sunk garden grown 

 over with a pergola of roses. 



Through one winter the gardener dug and dug 

 and after many months created a tomb. . . . 

 Four little steps at one end of it led down to a 

 wall and a seat. Roses grew and flourished all 

 over the tomb, but it was useless : it was a failure, 

 and it remained for years an object of scorn and 

 derision. Nobody cared to sit in it : nobody could 

 see in it the first blundering sketch of an idea. 

 I did not see it myself until circumstances con- 

 spired to make the idea grow to maturity. . . . 

 Then, in a flash, it became apparent that I had 

 never really planned a tomb, but all unconsciously 



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