MASTERS AND MEN 275 



who thinks that the merely technical part, which 

 he perfectly understands, is all that there is to be 

 kao\vn and practised, and that his crude ideas about 

 arrangement of flowers are as good a*; those of any 

 one else. And a man of this temperament cannot be 

 induced to believe, and still less can he be made to 

 understand, that all that he knows is only the means 

 to a further and higher end, and that what he can 

 show of a completed garden can only reach to an 

 average dead-level of dulness compared with what may 

 come of the life-giving influence of one who has the 

 mastery of the higher garden knowledge. 



Moreover, he either forgets, or does not know, what 

 is the main purpose of a garden, namely, that it is to give 

 its owner the best and highest kind of earthly pleasure. 

 Neither is he enlightened enough to understand that 

 the master can take a real and intelligent interest in 

 planning and arranging, and in watching the working 

 out in detail. His small-minded vanity can only see 

 in all this a distrust in his own powers and an inten- 

 tional slight cast on his ability, whereas no such idea 

 had ever entered the master's mind. 



Though there are many of this kind of gardener 

 (and with their employers, if they have the patience to 

 retain them in their service, I sincerely condole), there 

 are happily many of a widely-different nature, whose 

 minds are both supple and elastic and intelligently 

 receptive, who are eager to learn and to try what has 

 not yet come within the range of their experience, 



