Excuse and Epilogue 



lose all interest in it and find it incredible that 

 there should be found others with a desire to read. 

 . . . Such a feeling is quite proper with regard 

 to a book, which, when all is said and done, is but 

 paper, and ink, and pasteboard, and a deal of 

 vanity : but a garden — even the most distorted 

 and maltreated — is a living thing, a vital possession, 

 and, therefore, to be shared with all who have a 

 mind to do so, and real friendliness in their hearts. 

 Towns are but gardens defiled, and those who live 

 in pure gardens should let all and sundry peep 

 into them for comfort and delight. . . . First and 

 last, for foreword and epilogue, I would write with 

 Montaigne : 



" Reader, loe here a well-meaning booke." 

 On the other hand, I fancy that no one can 

 write a book without dreaming of Castles in Spain, 

 and of all the wonderful impossible things that it 

 is to lead to. . . . There you come to the region 

 between the dream and the business, in which 

 words cease to be available and become meaning- 

 less. When all is told of the garden, what I have 

 made of it, and what it has made of me, there 

 remains this hope, that the pleasure won from it 

 and the lessons learned may be profitable elsewhere 

 in the world than in my own small parcel of the 

 earth. 



221 



