72 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
our highest pleasure in giving it away. You will find 
that the genuine gardener, who enters heart and soul 
into his work, has no selfish manner of enjoying the 
results of it; he grows many a row of beans and peas, 
many a score bunches of grapes, many a dozen melons 
and cucumbers, expressly to give away; and, if you were 
to watch him when he packs up the hamper for a friend, 
you would see that he chooses the best, and reserves 
those that are ill-shaped, badly-ripened, or in any way 
defective to the eye or palate, for himself. I believe I 
have given away a good third of all I have grown for 
many years past, and I do hope my heart will not 
so shrivel up that I shall ever cease to dig, sow, train, 
and reap expressly for those whom I esteem as dear to 
me, who have either no opportunity or no skill to produce 
garden products for themselves. 
A thousand anecdotes of the active nature of the 
generosity that grows up in a garden might be told here, 
and no end of historical events might be shown to have 
their chief interest in connection with such things. I 
shall never forget how Margaret Fuller describes her 
“ first friend,” as heightening the ideal beauty in which 
she floated before the child's imagination by her precious 
gifts of flowers. Here is one passage from her diary to 
the point:— 
“ She has just brought me a little bouquet. Her 
flowers have suffered greatly by my neglect, when I 
would be so engrossed by other things in her absence. 
But not to be disgusted or deterred, whenever she can 
glean one pretty enough, she brings it to me. Here is 
the bouquet—a very delicate rose, with its half-blown bud. 
