A DEDICATION 
3 UR labor is but a manifestation of our thought, and 
in its performance we may swink and toil under 
= the burden, or we may use matter joyously as a 
plastic means to an end. 
No one should have a garden which grows nothing but 
flowers, and yields no other recompense to the gardener ex- 
cept successful plants. Over, beyond and above must hover 
the spirit of poetry, of wonder, of mystery; otherwise there 
comes a day of disillusion when you awaken to the weariness, 
anxiety and watchfulness, and begin to measure the reward. 
You need a larger insight, something that connects your ef- 
forts with the universal in nature, the ideal, the soul of things. 
Into this you may lift the garden, and at once drop the tired 
body and soiled hands, and the whole material aspect of labor. 
For six summers I had watched the sun and rain weave a 
garment of flowers over the bare earth, and knowing that each 
creation of Nature differs from aught else in the universe, I 
sought to find wherein lay the essential difference between my 
garden and all others. By day and night I observed the play 
of color, the quantity and direction of light, the atmospheric 
effects; and it becomes a vastly interesting study to see how a 
familiar object behaves itself from day to day, how it ac- 
cepts its environment, and adjusts itself to heat and cold, to 
sun and cloud. Each day the expectant eye catches a fresh 
glimpse of an infinite variety. 
In time I discerned the soul of my garden, which mani- 
fested itself in its long subtile shadows. It was as if Nature 
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