A GARDEN IN VENICE 



house and garden when I visited them seemed 

 well kept, and she had made the old man's life 

 easy, I hoped she might do the same for mine. 



The experiment completely failed. I had to 

 do her work and console her that she could not 

 do it. Her Giudecca subjects ruled her, and after 

 this venture I determined to do for myself. It 

 was, after all, easier if one had to see that any 

 orders given were carried out to do so at first 

 hand rather than through an intermediary who 

 let all things drop. And then the pleasure of it 

 all is so much greater. The garden, ours by 

 rights of purchase, of laying out, and planting, 

 became ours all the more completely by the work 

 daily done within it. Not only nearly all the 

 trees and all the shrubs and plants were ours by 

 their introduction, but also by their education. 

 The children we brought to life we feed, fashion, 

 and educate in the way that they should grow. 



Our aids are mostly the men who, coming to 

 the garden as boys, have grown up in it. Their 

 training has been bad, but they have lately been 

 more content to learn than a Venetian generally 



p 2 115 



