his only who, because he loves it, tends it with ONE'S OWN 



his own hands, learns its needs with his own GARDEN 



heart, and grows into familiar companionship 



with the beautiful living things in it. The trees 



and bushes and flowers planted and tended by 



his hands come to be friends, and dearer by 



each association which gathers about them. 



He learns their speech. They tell him the 



secret of their beauty, and they are his, as one's 



friends may be his own. 



Such possession is not bought except with 

 love. To really have the flowers, you must have 

 them as you have your friends. You must 

 "consort with them, tend them in sickness 

 and in health, cultivate them for better or for 

 worse, and let them twine themselves about 

 your inner and outer life," for only so can 

 your garden be your own. 



But in no absolute sense may the garden be 

 one's own. I am glad that in no such sense 

 can it be so. By an unerring law, when one 

 attempts to make it his own in the spirit of 

 selfish exclusion he loses it in just that deep 

 spiritual sense that the man who is unwilling 

 to give life loses it. 

 [31 I 



