OCTOBER 141 



midsummer, say (as has more than once happened), 

 " What a nice batch of young Hollyhocks ! " 



In such a simple matter as the culture of this good 

 hardy Violet, my garden, though it is full of limita- 

 tions, and in all ways falls short of any worthy ideal, 

 enables me here and there to point out something 

 that is worth doing, and to lay stress on the fact that 

 the things worth doing are worth taking trouble about. 

 But it is a curious thing that many people, even 

 among those who profess to know something about 

 gardening, when I show them something fairly suc- 

 cessful — the crowning reward of much care and labour 

 — refuse to believe that any pains have been taken 

 about it. They will ascribe it to chance, to the good- 

 ness of my soil, and ' even more commonly to some 

 supposed occult influence of my own — to anything 

 rather than to the plain fact that I love it well enough 

 to give it plenty of care and labour. They assume 

 a tone of complimentary banter, kindly meant no 

 doubt, but to me rather distasteful, to this effect : 

 " Oh yes, of course it will grow for you ; anything will 

 grow for you; you have only to look at a thing and 

 it will grow." I have to pump up a laboured smile 

 and accept the remark with what grace I can, as a 

 necessary civility to the stranger that is within my 

 gates, but it seems to me evident that those who say 

 these things do not understand the love of a garden. 



I could not help rejoicing when such a visitor 

 came to me one October. I had been saying how 



