GARDEN PATHS 



ing joy. To come new to a fresh place untouched by any 

 other hand and to work your will on it gives one all the 

 delights of conquest, and the pleasant fatigue of a war 

 in which you are bound to win. You can make your 

 own traditions, founding them for future ages — as, 

 for instance, you may so plant your trees as to force 

 one view on the attention. You can emulate Rome 

 and carry your paths straight and level. In fact, that 

 little new world is yours to conquer. 



To me a winding path offers the more alluring pros- 

 pect, just as it is more pleasant to walk on a winding 

 road where each turn opens out a fresh vista, and the 

 coming of every hidden corner is in the way of an ad- 

 venture. I have just made such a path. 



To be precise my path is eighteen feet long and two 

 feet and a quarter wide. It curves twice, really in a 

 sort of courteous bow in avoiding a Standard Rose 

 tree, and begins and ends in a little low step of Box ; 

 this to prevent the cinders of which it is made from 

 mingling with gravel of the paths into which it runs. 



I began it on a Monday. It is made through a Rose 

 bed that was too wide to work properly. At about 

 nine in the morning the gardener and I stood regarding 

 the unconscious Rose-bed with much the same gravity 

 as men might regard a range of hills through which a 

 tunnel was to be drilled. 



I said, " This seems the best place to make a path 

 through the bed." 



The gardener made a serpentine movement with his 

 hand to indicate the possible curve of the path and 

 replied, after an interval : that such a place seemed as 

 good as any. 



We then, with a certain lightening of heart after 

 this tremendous thought, walked into the bed and 

 surveyed it. This tree would have to be moved, and 



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