The Garden in Mid-Winter 



joyous season of the vintage, but when days 

 are shortest and rains are cold ; we profess an 

 impious religion which will conduct us surely 

 to damnation ; our manners are odious — we 

 don't even know how to take ofF our hats ; 

 we make a ridiculous fuss about boiled water 

 and such trifles ; our pockets are apparently 

 overflowing with boundless wealth, and yet 

 we make ourselves hot digging in the garden ; 

 we scour inhospitable mountains with no com- 

 prehensible object ; we are always hunting 

 for old and rickety chairs and tables, and 

 paying for them at least the price of new ones ; 

 we exhibit and expect a most uncomfortable 

 amount of energy, when there is really no 

 necessity to hurry or to fuss ; and just when 

 the warmth of spring is flooding our gardens, 

 which we profess to love, with the richest 

 treasures, we are off again. Truly must we 

 be sunk in 



" The depth of that consuming restlessness 

 Which makes man's greatest woe." 



The servants' view does not often leak out ; 

 when it does it is not always flattering to the 

 masters. " There has happened," wrote 

 Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, " a comical 



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