A GARDEN IN VENICE 



is. Disobedience and lack of discipline are, in 

 the lower class of the Venetians, racial qualities, 

 and so, ingrained. On subjects on which he is 

 ignorant he will give instruction; of his own 

 mestiere knowing little, he is so proud of what he 

 knows that he will not learn, and it takes years 

 of training from his boyhood before you can get 

 a man to use a Dutch hoe, or in any way to 

 loosen the soil before he picks the weeds out of 

 it with his hands. A broom on the paths or 

 lawn is an insult not to be offered them, and I 

 still get my garden roller worked by my gon- 

 doliers, who do it as a joke. It is well, therefore, 

 to catch your gardeners early. 



They have their excuse. Men who have never 

 learnt are hard to teach. Things new are to 

 them detestable, and the habits of their fathers, 

 the result of years spent in saving themselves 

 trouble, are quoted and regarded as the sum of 

 hallowed wisdom because it allows their doing 

 of the little that must be done in the way that is 

 the easiest. 



Then a modern garden was to them unknown ; 

 116 



