A gardener lives in the present and future ; if he 

 has a sad past, he forgets it. 



A garden is ageless and the gardener becomes age- 

 less too, as ageless as the wind, the rain, the sun, 

 summer and winter, for he becomes one with them 

 all. 



I believe no living creature could remain bad if 

 associated daily with flowers, for flowers have such 

 an Irish way of seducing, with the blarney of 

 beauty, to the simple, real and only abiding things 

 of life. 



Finding contentment, the gardener exhales it. 



Tucked away in a dim corner of the curiosity shop 

 of my brain is a fragment heard, read or dreamed 

 some time in the nebulous past; it runs: 



" A weary traveler was passing along and noticed 

 in his path a dry, shriveled leaf. Picking it up, he 

 was amazed at the perfume it exhaled. ' Oh ! thou 

 poor withered leaf, whence comest this exquisite 

 perfume.'' ' 



" The leaf replied : ' I have lain for a time in the 

 company of a rose. ' " 



Once a gardener, always a gardener; there is no 

 happier creature than the soil and flower lover. 



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