THE LURE OF THE GARDEN 
so much with the hope of their being avoided, for they 
are usually incurable, but simply as more or less in¬ 
teresting phases of human weakness or depravity. 
There is the man who believes every one else to be 
as hipped as he himself over the immature processes of 
his garden, and who routs out his luckless guest in the 
dim, damp hours of dawn to show him a series of ut¬ 
terly uninteresting squares of soil, while the dew, as he 
expresses it, “is still pearling each leaf and flower.” 
This admiration of dew is a disagreeable trait found in 
many otherwise reasonable gardeners, and is capable 
of leading them into the worst excesses of early 
rising, with a consequent moving forward of the break¬ 
fast hour that necessitates every one being dressed for 
the day by half-past six at the latest. 
This type of man will drag you out through the wet 
grass, and balance you on narrow, slippery paths while 
he points out minute bits of green, designating them by 
Latin names that you do not understand. If you inad¬ 
vertently set a heel on some absurd two-leafed driblet 
of a plant, he bounds to the assistance of the flattened 
seedling with a shriek of dismay, shouldering you into 
a puddle with a vicious twist of the shoulder. Of course 
you apologize, and he receives the apology; but at 
breakfast he is gloomy, and when your hostess inquires 
whether you didn’t find the garden looking very promis¬ 
ing, he replies, with a palpably forced hilarity, “Sam ’s 
a great gardener, he is. Managed to flatten out an 
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