shunted off into the drawing-room; but the others stay with me winter
and summer, and soon lose the gloss of their new coats, and put on the
comfortable look of old friends in every-day clothes, under the frequent
touch of affection. They are such special friends that I can hardly pass
them without a nod and a smile at the well-known covers, each of which
has some pleasant association of time and place to make it still more
dear.

My spirit too has wandered in one or two French gardens, but has not yet
heard of a German one loved beyond everything by its owner. It is, of
course, possible that my countrymen do love them and keep quiet about
them, but many things are possible that are not probable, and experience
compels me to the opinion that this is one of them. We have the usual
rich man who has fine gardens laid out regardless of expense, but those
are not gardens in the sense I mean; and we have the poor man with his
bit of ground, hardly ever treated otherwise than as a fowl-run or a
place dedicated to potatoes; and as for the middle class, it is too busy
hurrying through life to have time or inclination to stop and plant a
rose.

How glad I am I need not hurry. What a waste of life, just getting and
spending. Sitting by my pansy beds, with the slow clouds floating
leisurely past, and all the clear day before me, I look on at the hot
scramble for the pennies of existence and am lost in wonder at the
vulgarity that pushes, and cringes, and tramples, untiring and
unabashed. And when you have got your pennies, what then? They are only
pennies, after all--unpleasant, battered copper things, without a gold
piece among them, and never worth the degradation of self, and the
hatred of those below you who have fewer, and the derision of those
above you who have more. And as I perceive I am growing wise, and what