238 A GARDEN DIARY 
thought are equally fluid; few admit of greater 
variety ; more diversity of mood; more ranging 
from topic to topic. Possibly the most satis- 
factory of all its developments is when it enables 
us to follow some well-beloved pursuit, keeping 
pace with its minutest ramifications, losing our- 
selves, as it were, in its existence, and thereby 
evading half those irritating points, half those 
wounding asperities that belong to every human 
lot. Amongst such beloved and healing pur- 
suits that of gardening stands prominently 
forward. I have been assured that there are 
superior persons by whom it is held in exceed- 
ingly low repute; who regard it as a symptom, 
indeed, of mental degeneration, and, as a 
resource, below stamp-collecting, and about on 
a par with the acquisition of the idiot stitch. 
Were it my lot to be acquainted with any such 
superior persons there is one punishment that 
I must confess I should dearly love to bestow 
upon them; which is that they should first 
desperately need the comfort of such a solace, 
and afterwards—upon due probation and peni- 
tence—that they should come to find it! Few 
ideas are more bigoted, more essentially narrow 
and foolish, than this one about the elevating, 
or the non-elevating effect of our pursuits. It 
is upon a par with the equally pestilent notion 
that it is the narrowness of our lives, or the 
obscurity of our lots, that keeps our swelling souls 
