136 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



memories or we sigh for the waters of forgetfulness to 

 wash away the recollections of the one just gone who left 

 shadows of regret in the desecration of the silence with 

 trivial talk. 



It may not have been the echoes of gossip, better un- 

 said, which stirred our reflections ; perhaps it was only the 

 idle chatter that in its way is as much out of place as a 

 rag-time song from a graphophone when the wren in sing- 

 ing her vespers above the low harmonies of an insect 

 orchestra in the grass. 



Brief though it might have been, it was enough to re- 

 mind us that the choice of friends is an art. We will put 

 up with all sorts and conditions of personality with 

 humorous indulgence on a railway journey or at a public 

 gathering, because they are actors in the human comedy, 

 but when we visit an art gallery, listen to music, set forth 

 on a country ramble, or would enjoy the sweets of a gar- 

 den, then it is time to choose, and to beware lest those 

 enter who rush in where angels fear to tread. 



How often has it been that our goodness of heart has 

 been its own undoing and our hospitable instincts have 

 overruled our judgment. Our generosity is sadly de- 

 ceived; the guest we invited to commune with our lilies 

 could not free himself from the wit of a scandal, nor 

 what he had heard at a play, and all our ingenuity to 

 turn the talk from fashion to flowers was in vain. 



Such disappointments are lashes in the discipline of 



