The crow’s-nest | Project Gutenberg (2024)

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THERE is an attraction aboutcarpets and curtains, chairs andsofas, and the mantelpiece whichis hard to explain, and harder toresist. I feel it in all its insidious powerthis morning as I am bidding them farewellfor a considerable time; I would nothave believed that a venerable Axminsterand an arm-chair on three casters couldabsorb and hold so much affection; verilyI think, standing in the door, it was thesethings that made Lot’s wife turn her unluckyhead. Dear me, how they enter in,how they grow to be part of us, these objectsof ordinary use and comfort that weplace within the four walls of the littleshelters we build for ourselves on thefickle round o’ the world! I have goneback, I have sat down, I will not be deprivedof them; they are necessary to the[2]courage with which every one must face life.I will consider nothing without a cushion,on the hither side of the window, braced bydear familiar bookshelves, and the fender.And Tiglath-Pileser has come, and hasquoted certain documents, and has usedgentle propulsive force, and behold, becauseI am a person whose contumacy cannotendure, the door is shut, and I am onthe outside disconsolate.

I would not have more sympathy thanI can afterwards sustain; I am only banishedto the garden. But the banishmentis so definite, so permanent! Its termsare plain to my unwilling glance, a longcane deck chair anchored under a tree.Overhead the sky, on the four sides thesky, without a pattern, full of wind andnothing. Abroad the landscape, consistingentirely of large mountains; about, thegarden. I never regarded a garden withmore disfavour. Here I am to remain—butto remain! The word expands, youwill find, as you look into it. Man, andespecially woman, is a restless being, made[3]to live in houses roaming from room toroom, and always staying for the shortesttime moreover, if you notice, in the onewhich is called the garden. The subtle andgratifying law of arrangement that makesthe drawing-room the only proper place forafternoon tea operates all through. Theconvenience of one apartment, the quiet ofanother, the decoration of another regularlyappeal in turn, and there is always one’sbeloved bed, for retirement when the worldis too much with one. All this I am compelledto resign for a single fixed fact andcondition, a cane chair set in the greatmonotony of out-of-doors. My eye, whichis a captious organ, is to find its entertainmentall day long in bushes—and grass.All day long. Except for meals it is absolutelylaid down that I am not to “comein.” They have not locked the doors, thatmight have been negotiated, they have goneand put me on my honour. From morninguntil night I am to sit for severalmonths and breathe, with the grass and thebushes, the beautiful pure fresh air. I[4]don’t know why they have not asked meto take root and be done with it. In vainI have represented that microbes will agreewith them no better than with me; it seemsthe common or house microbe is one of thethings that I particularly mustn’t have.Some people are compelled to deny themselvesoysters, others strawberries or artichokes;my fate is not harder than another’s.Yet it tastes of bitterness to sit out here in anApril wind twenty paces from a door behindwhich they are enjoying, in customary warmthand comfort, all the microbes there are.

I have consented to this. I have beenwrought upon certainly, but I have consented.For all that, it is not so simple asit looks. It is my occupation to write outwith care and patience the trifles the worldshows me, revolving as it does upon its axisbefore every intelligent eye; and I cannotbe divorced from all that is upholstered andfrom my dear occupation by the same decree.And how, I ask you, how observelife from a cane chair under a tree in a garden!There is the beautiful pure fresh air[5]certainly, and there are the things comingup. But what, tell me, can you extractfrom air beside water; and though a purelyvegetable romance would be a novelty,could I get it published? Tiglath-Pileserhas contributed to my difficulty a book ofreference, a volume upon the coleoptera ofthe neighbourhood, and I am to take careof it. I am taking the greatest care of it,but I do not like to hand it back to himwith the sentiments I feel in case one fineday I should be reduced to coleoptera andthankful to get them.

Nevertheless I have no choice, I cannotgo forth in the world’s ways and see whatpeople are doing there, I must just sit undermy tree and think and consider upon thecurrent facts of a garden, the bursting budsI suppose and the following flowers, thepeople who happen that way and the ideasthe wind brings; the changes of the seasons—there’sfashion after all in that—thebehaviour of the ants and earwigs; oh, Iam encouraged, in the end it will be a novelof manners!

[6]Besides, there ought to be certain virtues,if one could find them, in plein air, for scribblingas well as for painting. One’s headalways feels particularly empty in a garden,but that is no reason why one should notsee what is going on there, and if one’s impressionsare a trifle incoherent—the winddoes blow the leaves about—they will beon that account all the more impressionistic.

Yet it is not so simple as it looks. Insuch a project everything depends, it will beadmitted, upon the garden; it must be atolerably familiar, at least a conceivable spot.The garden of Paradise, for instance, whowould choose it as a point de repaire fromwhich to observe the breed of Adam at thebeginning of the twentieth century? Onewould be interrupted everywhere by thenecessity of describing the flora and fauna;it would be like writing a botany book withinterpolations which would necessarily seemprofane; and the whole thing would berejected in the end because it was not ascientific treatise upon the origin of apples.Certainly, if one might select one’s plot, the[7]first consideration should be the geographical,and I am depressed to think that mygarden is only less remote than Eve’s. Itis not an English garden—ah, the thought!—nora French one where they count theseeds and the windfalls, nor an Italian onesunning down past its statues to the blueAdriatic, nor even a garden in the neighbourhoodof Poughkeepsie where they growpumpkins. Elizabeth in her German gardenwas three thousand miles nearer toeverybody than my cane chair is at thismoment. How can I possibly expectpeople to come three thousand miles justto sit and talk under my pencil-cedar? So“long” an invitation requires such confidence,such assurance!

Who indeed should care to hear aboutevery day as it goes on under a conifer ina garden, when that garden—let me keepit back no longer—is a mere patch on amountain top of the Himalayas? Not evenIndia down below there, grilling in the sunwhich is not quite warm enough here—thatwould be easy with snakes and palm-trees[8]and mangoes and chutneys all growinground, ready and familiar; but Simla, whatis Simla? An artificial little communitywhich has climbed eight thousand feet outof the world to be cool. Who ever leavesCharing Cross for Simla? Who among theworld’s multitudes ever casts an eye acrossthe Rajputana deserts to Simla? DoesThomas Cook know where Simla is? No;Simla is a geographical expression, to beverified upon the map and never to bethought of again, and a garden in Simla isa vague and formless fancy, a possibility, nomore.

Yet people have to live there, I have tolive there; and certainly for the next fewmonths I have to make the best of it fromthe outside. If you ask yourself what youreally think of a garden you will find thatyou consider it a charming place to go outinto. So much I gladly admit if you addthe retreat and background of the house.The house is such an individual; such afriend! Even in Simla the house offerscorners where may lurk the imagination,[9]nails on which to hang a rag of fancy; butin this windy patch under the sky surroundedby Himalayas, one Himalaya behind anotherindefinitely, who could find two ideas to rubtogether?

Also my cane chair is becoming mostpitiably weary; it aches in every limb. Thesun was poor and pale enough; now it hasgone altogether, a greyness has blown outof Thibet, my fingers are almost too numbto say how cold it is. The air is full of anapprehension of rain—if it rains do yousuppose I am to come in? Indeed no, Iam to have an umbrella. Uncomforted,uncomfortable fate! I wish it would rain;I could then pity myself so profoundly, soabjectly, I would lie heroic, still and stoic;and at the appointed time I would take mysoaking, patient person into the house witha trail of drops, pursued by Thisbe withhot-water bottles, which I would reject, toher greater compassion and more contrition.And in the morning it would be a queerthing if I couldn’t produce rheumatismsomewhere. Short of rain, however, it will[10]be impossible to give a correct and adequateimpression of the bald inhospitality of out-of-doors.They will think I want to bepitied and admired, and Thisbe will say,“But didn’t you really enjoy it—just alittle?”

Walls are necessary to human happiness—thatI can asseverate. Tiglath-Pileser, inbringing me to this miserable point, arguedthat I should experience the joys of primitiveman when he took all nature for hisliving-room; subtle, long-lost sensationswould arise in me, he said, of such a persuasivecharacter that in the end I shouldhave to combat the temptation to take entirelyto the woods. I expect nothing ofthe kind. My original nomad is too faraway, I cannot sympathize with him in hisembryotic preferences across so many wisestcenturies. Moreover, if the poor barbarianhad an intelligent idea it was to get undershelter, and that is the only one, doubtless,for which we have to thank him.

The windows are blank; they think itkindest, I suppose, not to appear to find[11]entertainment in my situation. It is certainlywisest; if Thisbe showed but the tipof her pretty nose I should throw it up.The windows are blank, the door is shut,but hold—there is smoke coming out ofthe drawing-room chimney! Thisbe haslighted unto herself a fire and is now drawnup around it awaiting the tea-things. Thehouse as an ordinary substantive is hardenough to resist, but the-house-with-a-fire!No, I cannot. Besides it is already half-pastfour and I was to come in at five to tea.I will obey the spirit and scorn the letter ofthe law—I will go in now.

A ROAD winds round the hillabove our heads; another windsround the hill below our feet;between is a shelf jutting out.

The principal object on the shelf is thehouse, but it also supports the pencil-cedar,and the garden sits on it, and at the backthe servants’ quarters and stables just don’tslip off; so that when Tiglath-Pileser walksabout it with his hands in his pockets itlooks a little crowded. The land betweenthe upper road and the shelf, and the landbetween the shelf and the lower road isequally ours, but it is placed at such anabrupt and uncompromising angle that wedo not know any way of taking possessionof it. By surface measurement we aredoubtless large proprietors, but as the crowflies we are distinctly over-taxed. Thisslanting hill-side is called the khud; there[13]is no real property in a khud. One alwaysthinks of town lots as flat and running fromthe front street to the back, with suitableexposure for the washing. It just depends.This one stands on end, you could easilysend a stone rolling from the front streetinto the back, if you knew which waswhich; and there would be rather too muchexposure for the washing. If you like youcan lean up against the khud, but that is theonly way of asserting your title-deed, andfew people consider it worth doing. I maysay that as soon as you tilt your propertyout of the horizontal you lose control overit. Things come up on it precisely as theylike, in tufts, in suckers and in every vulgarmanner, secure and defiant it rises aboveyour head. Tiglath-Pileser and I havesought diligently, with ladders, for some wayof bringing our khud into subjection, but invain. As he says we might paper it, but as Isay there are some things which persons whoderive their income from current literaturesimply can not afford. So we are contentperforce to look at it and “call it ours,” as[14]children are sometimes allowed by theirelders to do. The khud is God’s propertybut we call it ours. Trees grow on it andit makes a more agreeable background, afterall, than other people’s kitchens.

Beyond the shelf the hill-side slopes clearfrom the upper road to the lower, a stretchof indefinite jungle which flourishes, no manaiding or forbidding. We have sometimeslooked at it vaguely and thought of potatoes,but have always decided that it was usefulenough and much less troublesome as partof the landscape. The other day the lawthreatened us if Tiglath-Pileser did notforthwith declare his boundaries in thatdirection, and he has since been going aboutwith a measuring-chain and a great pretenceof accuracy; but it is my private belief thatneither he nor his neighbour will be equal tothe demand. They had better agree quicklyand hatch a friendly deposition together, andso escape whatever penalty the law awardsfor not knowing where your premises leaveoff. Meanwhile the wild cherry and theunkempt rhododendron grow in one accord[15]indifferent to these foolish claims. Suchis ownership in a khud.

Our domain therefore is spread out aboutas much as it would hang from a clothes-line,but the only part we really inhabit isthe shelf. All this by way of informingyou honestly that the garden in which youare invited to lighten so many long hoursfor me is no great place. Here and nowI abjure invention and idealization; youshall have just what happens, just whatthere is, and it won’t be much. Pot-luck—youcan’t expect more from a garden ona shelf. I must admit that before I wasturned out to grow in it myself I thought itwell enough, but now I regard it critically,like the other plants. We might do better,all of us, under more favourable conditions.We complain unanimously, for one thing,of the lack of room. Cramped we are tosuch an extent that I often feel thankfulfor the paling that runs along the edge andkeeps us all in. I suppose nobody everbelieved that his lot gave him proper scopefor his activities in this world, but I can[16]testify that the wisteria which twines over thepaling is pushing a middle-aged hibiscus bushdown the khud, while I, sitting here, elbowthem both, and a honeysuckle, climbing upfrom below has to cling with both hands tohold on. If I invite a friend to take a walkin my garden I must go in front declaimingand he must come behind assenting; wecannot waste space on mere paths, and noneof them are wide enough for two people towalk abreast, except the main one to thedoor, which had to be on account of therickshaws. As it is, pansies, daisies andother small objects constantly slip over theedge and hang there precariously attachedby the slenderest root of family affectionfor days. We are all convinced in thisgarden, that for expansion one would notchoose a shelf, and that applies in quite aridiculous way to Simla itself, though perhapsit is hardly worth while, out here inthe sun, to write an essay to explain exactlyhow.

I would not show myself of a churlishmind; the day is certainly fine, as fine a day[17]as you could be compelled to sit out in. Aweek has passed since I lent myself to be aspectacle of domestic tyranny and modernscience, and I hasten to announce that althoughI want to eat more and to go to bedearlier I am not at all better. I have let theweek go by without taking any notice of it inthis journal under the impression that it wasnot worth the pains, as they say in France.It was doubtless a wonderful week in nature,but which of the fifty-two is not? and beingcertain that my fountain pen would be anythingbut a source of amiability, I left it inthe house. Moreover, there is somethingnot quite proper, one finds, in confiding anexperience of personal discomfort, undergonewith the object of improving one’s health,to the printed page; it is akin to lendingone’s maladies to an advertiser of patentmedicines, and tends to give light literaturetoo much the character of a human document.Also, to look back upon, the late week holdslittle but magnificent resolution and the sensationof cold feet. All that need be saidabout it is that I have at last arrived at the[18]end of it, full of fortitude and resignation.I am not at all better, but I am resigned andprepared to go on, if it is required of me,and it seems likely to be. In fact it appearsto have occurred to nobody but myself thatthere was anything experimental about thisperiod. The whole summer is to be the experiment,I am told, as often as if they wereaddressing the meanest intelligence, which isnot the case.

My sensibilities no doubt are becomingslightly blunted. A whole week without aroof over one’s head except at night wouldnaturally have that tendency. I find thatI am no longer a prey to the desire to goin and look at something in the last numberof The Studio, and the more subtly tormentedof modern novelties fails to hold my attentionfor more than half-an-hour at a time.The spirit in my feet that would carry meindoors has still to be bound down, but ithas grown vague and purposeless and mightlead me anywhere, even to the kitchen tosee if the cook is keeping his saucepansclean, the most detestable responsibility of[19]my life. Now that I am a close prisoneroutside the house, by the way, it shall bedelegated to Thisbe. That is no more thanright.

It was not worse than I expected, and itwas a little less bad, let me confess, than Idescribed it to my family. I can now sympathizewith the youthful knight of themiddle ages at the end of his first night’sghostly vigil in the sanctuary,—if the restare no worse than this they can be gotthrough with. I am certainly on betterterms with nature, as he was on better termswith the skeleton in the vault, apprehendingwith him in that neither of them was reallycalculated to do us any harm. He no doubtlost his superstitions as I am losing my finerfeelings; whether one is sufficiently compensatedfor them by a vulgar appetite anda tendency to drowsiness immediately afterdinner is a question I should like to discusswith him.

For one thing I am beginning to makeacquaintance with the Days and to knowthem apart, not merely as sunny days, dull[20]days, windy days and wet days, as they arecommonly unobserved and divided, but inthe full and abundant personality whichevery one of the three hundred and sixty-fiveoffers to the world that rolls under it.To me also, a very short time ago, the daywas a convenient arrangement for makingthings visible outside the house, accompaniedby agreeable or disagreeable temperatures; amere condition monotonously recurrent andquite subordinated to engagements. To liveout here enveloped by it, dependent on it,in a morning-to-night intimacy with it, is toknow better. The Day is a great elementalcreature left in charge of the world for aslong, every twenty-four hours, as she can seeit. No one day is the same as another;those of the same season have only a familylikeness. They express character and temperament,like people, and if you elect to livewith them, to throw yourself, as it were, upontheir better nature with no other protectionthan an umbrella, it just makes all the difference.Some were tender and sweet-tempered,I remember, some were thoughtful, with a[21]touch of gloom, one was artist with a firmhand and a splendid palette. And amongall the seven I did not dislike a single Day,which is remarkable when one thinks of theabuse one is so apt to let fall, from the insideof a window, about what our common littlebrains call “the weather.” There is noweather, it is a poor and pointless term,there is only the mood of a day, and howeverbadly it may serve our paltry ends it isbound at least to be interesting. When onereflects upon how little this great thing isregarded and how constantly from behindglass, by miserable men, one is touched withpity for the ingratitude of the race, andastonishment at the amount of personalsuperiority to be acquired in a week. Dayunto day uttereth speech, swinging a lantern;it is the business of night to wait. Day afterday, too spiritual to be pagan, too sensuousto be divine, speeds out of time into theeternity where planets are served in turn.Behold, in spite of all their science, I showyou a mystery, high and strange whether thesun is in his tabernacle or the clouds are on[22]the hills. But it is there always, you can seeit for yourself. Go out into the garden, notfor a stroll, but for a day.

The week has brought me—and how canI be too grateful—a new and personal feelingabout this exquisite thing that passes.Waking in the blackness of the very smallhours I find a delicate gladness in thethought of the far sure wing of the day.Already while we lie in the dark it brushesthe curve of the world in that far East whichis so much farther, already on a thousandslopes and rice fields the grey dawn is beginning,beginning; and sleeping huts andsilent palaces stand emergent, marvellouslypathetic to the imagination. Even while Ithink, it is crisping the sullen waves of theYellow Sea; presently some outlying reef ofpalms will find its dim picture drawn, and thenwe too, high in the middle of Hindostan, willswing under this vast and solemn operation.With that precision which reigns in heavenour turn will also come, and in my gardenand over the hills will walk another day.

THERE is a right side and awrong side to the mountain ofSimla, for it was a mountain eightthousand feet high and equallyimportant long before it became the summerheadquarters of the Government of India,and a possible pin-point on the map. Thesemountains run across the tip of India, youwill remember, due east and west, so that ifyou live on one of them you are very apt tolive due north or south. On the south sideyou look down, on a clear day, quite to theplains, if that is any advantage; you see thePunjab lying there as flat as the palm ofyour hand and streaked with rivers, and thesame sun that burns all India bakes downupon you. On the north side you haveturned your back on Hindostan and sit uponthe borders of Thibet, a world of mountainsbars your horizon, a hermit Mahatma might[24]abide with you in his ashes and have hismeditations disturbed by no thought ofmissionaries or income tax. Your prospectis all blue and purple with a wonderful edgesometimes of white; cool winds blow out ofit and fan your roses on the hottest day.Out there is no-man’s-land, where the cooliescome from, or perhaps the country of a littleking who wears his crown embroidered onhis turban, and in India who recks of littlekings? Out there are no Secretariats, noArmy Headquarters, no precedence, probablyvery little pay, but the vast blue freedomof it! And all expanded, all extendedjust at your front door. * * * * *

The asterisks stand for the time I havespent in looking at it. Freely translatedthey should express an apology. I find itone of the pernicious tendencies of living onthis shelf that my eyes constantly wanderout there taking my mind with them, whichat once becomes no more than a vacantmirror of blue abysses. I look, I know,immensely serious and thoughtful, andThisbe, believing me on the tip of some[25]high imagination goes round the other way,whereas I am the merest reflecting puddlewith exactly a puddle’s enjoyment of thescene. There is neither virtue nor profitin this, but if I apologized every time I didit these chapters would be impassable withasterisks. Thisbe’s method is much morereasonable; she takes her view immediatelyafter she takes her breakfast. Coming outupon the verandah she looks at it intelligently,pronounces it perfectly lovely orrather hazy, returns to her employments,and there is an end to the matter. Onecannot always, in Thisbe’s opinion, be referringto views. I wish I could adopt thiscalm and governed attitude. I should geton faster in almost every way. It is myignominious alternative to turn my backupon the prospect and look up the khud.

Into my field of vision comes Atma, doingsomething to a banksia rose-bush thatclimbs over a little arbour erected across apath apparently for the convenience of thebanksia rose-bush. Atma would tell you,protector of the poor, that he is the gardener[26]of this place; as a matter of feet his relationto it is that of tutelary deity and real proprietor.I have talked in as large a way asif it belonged to Tiglath-Pileser because hepays for the repairs, but I should have hadthe politeness at least to mention Atma,whose claims are so much better. So far aswe are concerned Atma is prehistoric; hewas here when we came and when we havecompleted the tale of one years of exile andgone away he will also be here. His hut isat the very end of the shelf and I have neverbeen in it, but if you asked him how longhe has lived there he would say, “Always.”It must make very little difference to Atmawhat temporary lords come and give ordersin the house with the magnificent tin roofwhere they have table-cloths; some, ofcourse, are more troublesome than others,but none of them stay. He and his bulbsand perennials are the permanent undisputedfacts; it is unimaginable that any of themshould be turned out.

I am more reconciled to my fate whenAtma is in the garden, he is something[27]human to look at and to consider, and hemoves with such calm wisdom among theplants. He has a short black curling beardthat grows almost up to his high cheek-bones,and soft round brown eyes full ofguileless cunning, and a wide and pleasantsmile. He is just a gentle hill-man and byreligion a gardener, but with his turbantwisted low and flat over his ears he mightbe any of the Old Testament characters oneremembers in the pictured Bible stories ofone’s childhood. Something primitive andnatural about him binds him closely to Adamin my mind. It was with this simplicityand patience, I am sure, that the originalcultivator tied up his banksias and saved hisportulaca and mignonette after the fall, whenhe had something to do beside come to hismeals. I am not the only person; everybodyto whom it is pointed out notices atonce how remarkably Atma takes after thefather of us all. I have often wished to callhim Adam because of his so peculiarly deservingit; but Tiglath-Pileser says thatprofane persons, knowing that he could not[28]have received the name at his baptism, mightlaugh and thus hurt his feelings. So he isAtma still. It is near enough.

He is also patriarchal in his ideas. Thismorning he came to us upon the businessof Sropo. Sropo, he said, wished for sixdays’ leave in order to marry himself.“But,” said I, “this is not at all proper.Sropo went away last year to marry himself.How shall Sropo have two wives?”

“Nā,” replied Atma, with his kindlysmile, “that was Masuddi. Masuddi hasnow a wife and a son has been,[1] and hiswages are so much the less. Also withoutdoubt this Sropo could not have two wives.”

“Certainly not,” said Tiglath-Pileser,virtuously.

“Sropo is of my village,” Atma explained,genially, “and we folk are all poor men.More than one wife cannot be taken. Butif we were rich like the Presence,” he wenton, gravely, “we would have five or six.”

Tiglath-Pileser shook his head. “Youwould be sorry,” said he. “It would be a[29]mistake,” but only I saw the ambiguity in hiseye.

“It is not your Honour’s custom,” returnedAtma, simply. “Sropo, then, will go?”

“Call Masuddi,” said Tiglath-Pileser.“It is a serious matter, this of wives.”

Round the corner of the verandah cameMasuddi, shy and broadly smiling, with anend of his cotton shirt in the corner of hismouth and pulling at it, as other kinds ofchildren pull at their pinafores.

“Masuddi,” said Tiglath-Pileser, “lastyear you made a marriage in your house,and now you have a son. Er—whichyoung woman did you marry?”

Masuddi’s smile broadened; he cast downhis eyes and scrabbled the gravel about withhis foot. “Tuktoo,” he said shamefacedly.

“Well, there is no harm in that. Whatis the name of your son?”

Masuddi looked up intelligently. “Howshould he have a name?” he asked. “He hasnot yet four months. He came with the snow.When he has a year, then he will get a name.My padre-folk—Brahmun—will give it.”

[30]“But you will say what it is to be,” Iput in.

“Nā,” said Masuddi, “the padre-folk willsay—to their liking.”

“Masuddi,” said Tiglath-Pileser, “speakstraight words—do you beat your wife?”

“Master,” replied Masuddi, “how shallI utter false talk? When she will not hearorders I beat her.”

“Masuddi,” said I, “straight words—doyou beat her with a stick?” Laughterrose up in him, and again he chewed theend of his garment. “According as myanger is,” he said, half turning away to hidehis face, “so I beat her.”

“Then she obeys?”

“Then fear is and she listens. Thus itis,” said Masuddi, his face clearing to anidea, “as we servant-folk are before yourHonours, so they-folk are before us.”

“You may go, worthy Masuddi,” pronouncedTiglath-Pileser, “and Atma maysay to Sropo, who is listening behind thewater-barrel, that I have heard the wordsof Masuddi and they are just and reasonable,[31]and he may go also and marry himself,but it must be done in six days, and it mustnot occur again.”

Masuddi and Sropo are two of the fourwho pull my rickshaw. When I am nottaking carriage exercise they will do almostanything else, except sew or cook, but Ihave discovered that the thing they reallylove to be set at is to paint. In the springthe paling required a fresh brown coat, andin a moment of inspired economy I decidedthat Masuddi and his men should be entrustedwith it. Never was task more willinglyundertaken. With absorption theymixed the pigment and thewi-oil, squeezingit with their hands; with joy they laidit on, competing among themselves, likeTom Sawyer’s schoolfellows. “Lo, it isbeautiful!” Masuddi would exclaim aftereach brushful, drawing back to look at it.I think they were sorry when it was done.

Atma is of these people, and the twogrooms, and Dumboo, the upper housemaid,a strapping treasure six feet in hisstockings. I would like it better if all our[32]servants were, but it is impossible to conceiveSropo doing up muslin frills—atleast it is impossible to conceive the frills—andI could not ask people to eat entréessent up by any friend of Masuddi’s. I admitthey do not altogether adapt themselves,or even wash themselves. I have beforenow locked Masuddi and the others upwith a tub and a bar of kitchen soap andinstructions of the most general nature, demanding,on their release, to see the soap.It was the only reliable evidence. Besidesif I had not required to see my soap, wornby honest service, they would have sold itand bought sweetmeats and gone none thecleaner. They have many such little ways,which few people I know consider as engagingas I do. But what I like best istheir lightheartedness and their touch offancy. Sropo will go to his nuptials witha rose behind his ear—where in my barbarousWest does a young man choose toapproach the altar thus? and when Masuddicourted Tuktoo upon the mountain pathsin the twilight I think a shy idyll went[33]barefoot between them; though he, themale creature, would make shame of it now,preferring to speak of sticks and of obedience.They are the young of the world,these hill sons and daughters, and they stillremember how the earth they are made ofstirs in the spring. It is late evening inmy garden now—there has seemed, somehow,no good reason to go in, though onenew leaf in the borders has long been justlike another—and far down the khud Ihear a playing upon the flute. It is a fragmentaryair but vigorous and sweet, and itbrings me, dropping through the vast andpurple spaces of the evening, the mostcharming sensation. For it is not a Secretaryto the Government of India who performs,nor any member of the choir invisiblethat sings hosannas over there to the Commander-in-Chief,but a simple hill-man whowould make a melody because it is spring,and he has perchance been given leave togo and marry himself.

PEOPLE are often removed fromtheir proper social spheres in thisworld and placed in others whichthey think lower and generallyless worthy of them. Their distant andhaughty behaviour under these circ*mstancesis rather, I am afraid, like my ownconduct at present, down in the world as Iam and reduced to the society of a garden.I, too, have been looking about me withcontemptuous indifference, returning novisits, though quantities of things have beencoming up to see me, and perpetually referringto the superior circles I moved in whenI knew better days and went out to dinner.You may notice, however, that such personsgenerally end by condescending to thesimpler folk they come to live among; it isdull work subsisting upon the most gloriousreminiscences and much wiser to become the[35]shining ornament of the more limited sphereto which one may be transferred. That isthe course I am considering, for whom cardsof invitation are dead letters, and to whomthe gay world up here will soon refer I haveno doubt, as the late Mrs. Tiglath-Pileserwho chose so singularly to bestow her remainsin a garden, though I am really aliveand flourishing there. I can never be theshining ornament of my garden becausenature intended otherwise and there is toomuch competition, but I may be able toexert an improving influence. It is not impossible,either, that I may find the horticulturalclass about me more interestingthan I find myself. I have been accustomedto speak with quite the ordinary contemptof persons who have “no resources withinthemselves”—in future I shall have moresympathy and less ridicule for such. Ishould rather like to know what one is expectedto possess in the way of “resources”tucked away in that vague interior which weare asked to believe regularly pigeon-holedand alphabetically classified. We do believe[36]it—by an effort of the imagination—butonly try, on a fine day out-of-doors, to rummage there.Your boasted brain is a perfectrag-bag, a waste-paper basket, a bran piefrom which you draw at hazard an articlevalue a penny-ha’penny. This is disappointingand humiliating when both youand your family believe that you have onlyto think in order to be quite indifferent to theworld and vastly entertained. “Resources”somehow suggests the things one has read,and I know I depended largely upon certainpoets, not one of whom will come near meunless I go personally and bring him fromthe bookshelves in his covers. Pope forone—why Pope I cannot say, unless becausehe would blink and cough and befundamentally miserable in a garden—greatbreadths of Pope I thought would visit mein quotation. Not a breadth. Immortalsof earlier and later periods are equally shy;I catch at their fluttering garments and theyare off, leaving a rag in my hand. Onlythat agreeable conceit of Marvell’s comesand stays,

[37]

and I am ashamed to look it in the face—Ihave positively worked it to death.

Apply within for lofty sentiments or profoundconclusions, the result is the same:these things fly the ardent seeker and onlyappear when you are not looking for them.Instead you find shreds of likes and dislikes,the ghost of an opinion you held lastweek, a desire to know what time it is. Myregrettable experience is that you can explorethe recesses of your soul out-of-doors inmuch less than a week if you put your mindto it, with surprise and indignation that youshould find so little there.

Dear me, there’s Mr. Pope, and very much,as usual, to the point! No, resources arethings you can lay your hands upon, and Ihave come to believe that they are all in thehouse.

Everything is up and showing, the garden[38]is green with promise, but very few thingsare quite ready for my kind advances; veryfew things are out. What a pretty idea, bythe way, in that common little word as theflowers use it! Out of the damp earth andthe green sheath, out into the sun with theothers, out to meet the bees and to snub thebeetles,—oh, out! When young girlsemerge into the world they too are “out”—theword was borrowed, of course, fromthe garden; its propriety is plain. Thisbe,I remember, is out this season; but I donot see anything in the borders exactly likeThisbe. Doubtless later on her prototypewill come, in June I think, unfolding a pinkpetal-coat. There is no hurry; it is yet onlythe second week in April and these greymountains are still delicate and dim underthe ideal touch of the wild apricot and plum.The borders may be empty, but there issweet vision to be had by looking up, andjust a hint of nature’s possible purposes witha khud. It now occurs to me that thereought to be clouds and clouds of this pinkand white blossoming all about the house,[39]behind as well as before, on each of ourseveral declivities,—there ought to be andthere is not. I remember now why there isnot. One crisp morning last autumn Tiglath-Pileser,who is a practical person, wasstruck by the fact, though it is not a newone, that wild fruit trees may be made tocultivate fruit by the process of grafting, andannounced his intention to graft largely.“Think,” said he, “of the satisfaction ofbeing able to write home to England thatyou are gathering from your own trees quantitiesof the greengages which they pay tenpencea pound for and place carefully intarts!”

The proceeding had not my approval. Itseemed to me that it would be a good dealof trouble and care and thought and anxietyto grow greengages on a khud, and we hadnone of these things to spare. Neitherwould there be any satisfaction in gatheringquantities of them when one could buy aconvenient number in the bazaar. We couldnot eat them all, and it was not our walk inlife to sell such things; we might certainly[40]expect to be cheated. We should be reducedto making indiscriminate presents ofthem and receiving grateful notes from peoplewe probably couldn’t bear. Or possiblyI, like the enterprising heroine of improvingmodern fiction, would feel compelled to starta jam factory, and did I strike him, Tiglath-Pileser,as a person to bring a jam factoryto a successful issue? At the moment, Iremember, an accumulation of greengagesseemed the one thing I precisely couldn’tand wouldn’t tolerate, but I didn’t say verymuch, hardly more than I have mentioned,as the supreme argument failed to occur tome at the time. The supreme argument,which only visits you after watching the pinkand white petals drop among the deodars forhours together, is, of course, that if you canafford to grow fruit to look at it is utilitarianfolly to turn it into fruit to eat. So I haveno doubt he had his way.... I have beento see; it is the case. Where there shouldbe masses of delicate bloom there are stumps,bare attenuated stumps, tied up in poulticeswith fingers sticking out of them, which I[41]suppose are the precious grafts. Well, thedevil enters into each of us in his own guise;I shall warn Tiglath-Pileser particularly tobeware of him in the form of a marketgardener.

I cannot conscientiously pass over therhododendrons, which are all aloft and ablazejust now. It would be unkind and ungratefulwhen they have come of their own accordto grow on my khud and make it in placesreally magnificent, though they arouse in meno sentiment at all and I had just as soonthey went somewhere else. At home therhododendron is a bush on a lawn; here itgrows into a forest tree, and when you comeupon it far out in the wilds with the sunshining through its red clusters against thevivid blue it stands like candelabra lighted tothe glory of the Lord. I will consent toadmire it in that office, but for common humangarden uses I find it a little over-superband very disconcerting to the apricots andplums. Also Thisbe will put it about inbowls, and will not see that its very fitnessfor sanctuary purposes makes it worse than[42]useless on the end of a piano. To beginwith, its name is against it. Philologicallyspeaking you might as well put a hippopotamusin a vase as a rhododendron. Apartfrom that it sulks in the house and huddlesinto bunches of red cotton. It misses thesun in its veins, I suppose, and its spiky cupof leaves, and its proper place in the worldat the end of a branch. The peony, whichit is a little like, is much better behaved ina drawing-room, but then it has a leg tostand on; we all want that. Besides, a peonyis a peony, which reminds me that I havenever seen one in Simla. It seems to havebeen left at home by design in the generalemigration of English flowers, like an unattractiveold maid whom it was not worthwhile to bring. But taste and fashion change,and I see a spot where a large bunch ofpeonies would be both comfortable and delectable.It is not, after all, only slim youngthings that are to be desired in society or ina garden. Firm, fine high-coloured madameswith ample skirts and ripe experience areoften much more worth cultivating.

[43]Ah! they hold me, even in imagination,the dear old peonies! Always they were thefirst, in a certain garden of early colonialfashion that I used to know in Canada, afterthe long hard winter was past, to push theirred-green beginnings up into the shabbywelcome of the month of March. We usedto look for them under the wet black fallenleaves before a sign had come upon theapple-trees, before anything else stirred orspoke at all; and how tender is one’s grown-upaffection for a thing which bound itselftogether like that with one’s childish delightin the first happy vibration of the spring!Here, after all these many springs and halfacross the world, here on my remote andlofty shelf where no one lives but Aryansand officials, I want them to come up againthat way, and if they have not forgottenthe joy of it perhaps I too shall remember.Atma having no objection, I will send toEngland for some peonies.

Everything is green except the forget-me-nots,they are very blue indeed in thickborders along both sides of the drive; sweet[44]they look, like narrow streams reflecting thesky in the middle of the garden. Do notgather the forget-me-not, it is a foolish inertlittle nonentity in the hand, it has not evencharacter enough for a button-hole, but inthe bosom of its family it is delightful. Atmais very pleased with these borders; it isthe first time he has had them so long andso gay. “How excellent this season,” sayshe in his own tongue, “are the giftie-noughtsof we people.” I told you he was a man ofparts; it is not easy to be a poet in anotherlanguage.

Also, I perceive, there are periwinkles onthe khud.

IT was an event this morning when Thaliacame whisking along the Mall inher rickshaw and turned in here.The Mall, I should mention, is theonly road in Simla that has a name. It is adeplorably inappropriate name, it makes youthink of sedan-chairs and elderly beaux andother things that have never appeared uponthe Himalayas, and it was doubtless given inderision, but it has stuck fast like many anotherpoor old joke until at last people takeit seriously and forget that it ever pretendedto be humorous. I don’t even knowwhether it is more fashionable to live uponthe Mall than elsewhere, or whether onecan claim to live upon it when it runs pastone’s attic windows like an elevated railway;but we have often remarked to one anotherthat if we cannot be said to live upon theMall we cannot be said to live anywhere and[46]taken what comfort may be had out of that.Our peculiar situation has at all events theadvantage that I can always see Thalia coming,which adds the pleasure of anticipationto her most unexpected visit. Like mostof us, Thalia arrives with the season, but itshould be added that she brings the seasonwith her. We amuse ourselves a good deal,for a serious community, with a toy theatre,in which we present Mr. Jones and Mr. Pineroso intelligently that I often wonder whyneither of these playwrights has yet comeout to ascertain what he is really capable of.Thalia is our leading comedienne; youwould have guessed that by her name. Sheis never too soon anywhere, but I had begunto wonder when she was coming up.“Up,” of course, means up from the plains,—upfrom the Pit, as its present temperaturequite permits me to explain. April is thelast month in which you can leave the Pitwithout being actually scorched.

“What are you doing here?” she exclaimed,half-way down the drive. She expected,I suppose, to find me in the house[47]trying to decide upon the shade of this year’scheese-cloth curtains. By the way, I havedecided—that the old ones will do. Thisbedoesn’t mind, and I’ve got the clouds.

“Oh, I’m just here,” I said with nonchalance.There is nothing like nonchalanceto prove superiority to circ*mstances.“How are you?”

“Thank you,” said Thalia. “Well, comealong in. I’ve got quantities of thingsto talk about.”

“It is very good of you,” I returned, “topress my hospitality upon me, but I don’tgo in. I stay out. If Tiglath-Pileser sawme entering the house at this hour,” I continuedwith the vulgarity which we permitourselves to the indulgent ear of a friend,“it would be as much as my place is worth.But you see I have a chair ready for emergencies—praysit down. You are the firstemergency that has arisen, I mean that hasdropped in, this year.”

When I had fully explained, as I was atonce of course compelled to do, with awealth of detail and much abuse of Tiglath-Pileser,[48] I was not gratified with the effectupon Thalia. “You have simply beenspending your time out-of-doors,” said she,“a very ordinary thing to do.”

“Try it,” said I.

“And are you better?”

“I think,” I replied, “that I have possiblygained a little weight. But I might aswell admit it cheerfully, they won’t take myword against any pair of scales.”

“That was an excellent prescription Isent you in October,” Thalia continued reproachfully.“You haven’t given it up?”

“It has given me up,” I respondedpromptly, “after the first three weeks it declinedto have anything whatever to say tome. And besides, it had to be taken indecreasing doses. Now if a thing is reallycalculated to do you good it should be takenin increasing doses. That is why I begin tohave some little confidence in this out-of-doorsbusiness. Every day I feel equal toa little more of it.”

“Well,” said Thalia, “Mrs. Lyric toldme that it had made another woman of her.[49]And Colonel Lyric commands the 10thPink Hussars.”

Thalia knows it annoys me to be toldabout a woman, with any sort of significance,what position her husband occupies in theworld, and that is the reason she does it.I do not say that it has no weight as a contributoryfact in a general description, but Ido say that an improper amount of importanceis usually attached to it. You askwhat kind of a person Mrs. Thom is, andyou are told, “Oh, Mr. Thom is Chief Secretaryin the Department of Thuggi andDacoity,” being expected without furtherado to dispose yourself to love her if shewill let you. One is always inclined to say“But she may be very nice in spite of that,”and one only refrains because one knowshow scandal grows in Simla. And there arepeople in these parts, I assure you, whowould run to take a prescription becauseit had made another woman of the wifeof the colonel commanding the 10th PinkHussars, no matter what kind of a womanshe had been before; but I was not going[50]to gratify Thalia by letting her see that Iknew it.

“At all events,” I said calmly, “it had tobe taken in decreasing doses and naturally itcame to an end. Are you settled in?”

“I have a roof to cover me,” said Thaliasententiously, “and for that,” she addedlooking round, “I didn’t know how thankfulI was. But I am undergoing repairs.They are putting mud into the cracks of mydwelling, paperhangers are impending, andthis morning arrived three whitewashers. Iwanted to be done with it at once, so I sentfor three. I told them I was in a hurry.In one breath, they said, it should be done,and sat down in the verandah to make theirbrushes. It’s a fact. Of split bamboo.You can not hustle the East. But I foundI had to come away.”

“How foolish it all seems!” I sighed withan eye upon the farther hills. “Shouldn’tyou like to see my pansies?”

“Yes,” she replied resignedly, “I suppose Imust see your pansies,” and where I led shefollowed me, still babbling of paperhangers.

[51]It is no exaggeration to say that duringthe months of April, May, and June, thereare more pansies than people in this town.(Upon second thoughts why should it be anexaggeration, since in every garden inhabitedby two or three persons there are hundredsof pansies.) They seem to like the officialatmosphere, doubtless in being so high anddry it suits them; at all events they adaptthemselves to it with less fuss than almostany other flower. And certainly they couldteach individuality to most of our worthybureaucrats, who have a way of coming up,they, exactly like each other. Pansies fromthe same parent root naturally look alike,but if you really scan their features there isnot the least resemblance between families.I have been living principally in their fellowshipfor several days and I quite feel thatmy knowledge of human nature is extended.There never was such variety of temperamentin any community; to describe itwould be to write a list of all the adjectivesyet invented to bear upon character, atedious task. It is positively a relief after[52]the slight monotony of a society in whicheverybody is paid by the Queen, to meetpersons like pansies, who aren’t paid byanybody, and who express themselves, inconsequence, with the utmost facility andfreedom. (Thalia, who is the wife of theHead of a Department, here interrupted meto ask what I could possibly mean.) Ohthere is no charm like spontaneity, in idea,behaviour, or looks. The Dodos of Londonsociety triumph by it, while self-consciouspeople of vast intellectual resourcesare considered frumps.

I imparted all this to Thalia, and sheagreed with me.

You see these things in a pansy, and agreat deal more—station in life, religiousconvictions almost—but try to focus yourimpression, try to analyze the bloomingcountenance that looks up into yours, andthe result is fugitive and annoying. Not afeature will bear inspection; instantly theyvanish, magically, as if ashamed of the likenessyou look for, and leave you contemplatingjust a flower, with petals. You have[53]noticed that in a pansy. It is better, if youwish to enjoy yourself among them, to takethem with a light and passing regard, andprivately add them to the agreeable thingsof life that will not bear looking into.

I here asked Thalia if she thought theydid better from seeds or from roots, and shesaid she didn’t know.

One often hears the German languagecomplimented on its pretty name for pansies,Stiefmütterchen, but it is very indiscriminating.They are by no means all littlestepmothers; some of them wear beardsand I wish they wouldn’t, for a beard is aloathly thing in nature or on men. Alsothe personation that goes on among them isreally reprehensible; one can find pansyphotographs of any number of people.One irascible and impossible old retiredcolonel in England is always appearing, tomy great satisfaction and delight. Theoriginal would be so vastly annoyed toknow how often he comes out to see mehere, and how amiable and interesting I findhim, for we are not good friends, and I am[54]sure he would not dream of calling in theflesh. It is an old story among us, but Iwas surprised to find Atma, too, impressedwith this likeness to the human family. Iasked him the other day why some pansieswere so big and others so little. He consideredfor a moment and then he said withthe smiling benevolence which we extend tothe intelligence of the young, “Like peoplethey come—some are born to be large andsome to be small. As Sropo and Masuddi.”Atma is really the interpreter of this garden.

Thalia again interrupted me to ask why itwas not possible this season, when purplewas so popular, to find in the shops anythingas royal as the colour a certain pansywas wearing. I said the reason was probablylost in science, but she immediatelysupplied it herself, as I have noticed mysex is prone to do in searching for generalexplanations. “Of course,” she said, “onemust remember that they grow their ownclothes. If we could only do that! Therepose of being quite certain that nobody elsehad your pattern!”

[55]“They would take too long,” I objected.“This poor thing has spent three-quartersof her life making her frock, andnow she can only wear it for about threedays.”

But Thalia seemed pleased with the idea.“Think how original I could make mygowns in Lady Thermidore,” she said pensively.

“And you would perish with your design!”I exclaimed.

“No,” she cried luminously, “I shouldreappear in another character!”

I have often noticed how radical is theeffect of play-acting upon the human mind.Your play-actress throws herself naturallyinto every character she meets. I could seethat it was giving Thalia hardly any troubleto transform herself into a pansy.

We went back to the chairs and sat down,but not for long. Consulting her watch,my friend announced that she must beoff, she was going to lunch at Delia’s. “AtDelia’s!” I remarked. “How people areswallowed up in their houses, to be sure![56]You would be more polite to say ‘at Delia.’It’s bad habit, this living in houses.”

“I think,” she responded, “that you arelosing your social graces. I had quantitiesof things to tell you, and I am taking themaway untold. The garden is too vague aplace to receive in. However, never mind,I will try to come again. Your flowers arecharming, but it has not been what I call asatisfactory visit. I hope I haven’t boredyou.”

“How can you say so!” I cried; “I haveenjoyed it immensely,” and I tucked heraffectionately into her rickshaw and sped heron her way. When she had well started Iremembered something, and ran after her.

“Well?” she demanded, all interest andcuriosity.

“It was only to ask you,” I said breathlessly,“if you had noticed what a largenumber of pansies look like Mr. Asquith?”

IT is a dull and serious day. As myfamily declare that I have become amere barometer of my former self,this will perhaps be, but I am notcertain, a dull and serious chapter. Thereare no clouds, there is only a prevailingopaqueness, which shuts down just beyondthe nearest ranges, letting through an unpleasantgeneral light that makes the placelook like a bad, hard, lumpish study in oils.The stocks, which have come out very elegantlysince last week, have a disappointedair and the pansies are positively lugubrious.Only the tall field-daisies and the snapdragonsseem not to mind. They plainlypreach and as plainly practise the philosophyof flowers taking what they can get in thehope of better things. Like most philosophersin a small way, however, they are notover-distressed with sensibility on their own[58]part, and I cannot see why they should takeit upon themselves to cheer up any of therest of us.

I have asked Sropo whether it is goingto rain. “Mistress,” he replied, “howshould I know?” “Worthy one,” said I,“you have lived in these parts for twentyyears. What manner of owl are you thatto you it does not appear whether or not itwill rain?” “Mistress,” quoth he, with histhroaty chuckle, “the rajah-folk themselvesdo not know this thing.”

I do not think, myself, that we shall haveanything so pleasant as rain. The day istoo dispirited for weeping; it will perform itsappointed task and go to bed. I have notin months encountered a circ*mstance, anassociate or a prescription so lowering as thepresent morning. Coming out as usual,quite prepared to be agreeable, it has givenme the cold shoulder and the sulky nod.For two pins I would go back into thehouse and take every flower I could gatherwith me.

Cometh the postman, advancing down the[59]drive. Always an interest attaches to thepostman; he is like to-morrow, you neverknow what he may bring, but he loses halfhis charm and all his dignity when deprivedof his rat-tat-tat. Government makes upfor it to some extent by dressing him in ared flannel coat with a leather belt and barelegs, but he can never acquire his properand legitimate warning for the simple reasonthat the houses of this country have neitherknockers nor bells. How sharply differentare the ways in which people account forthemselves in this world! It is one of thepoignancies of life. This Punjabi postmanearns his living by putting one foot beforeanother—it comes to that—in the diverseinterests of the community, and you neversaw anybody look more profoundly boredwith other people’s affairs. I earn mine—orwould if it were not for Tiglath-Pileser—bylooking carefully in the back of my headfor foolish things to write about a garden.It is a method so much pleasanter that mycompassion for the postman has a twinge ofscruple in it for my lighter lot. That I had[60]nothing in the world to do with the arrangementdoes not somehow make me quitehappy about it—the fact is that to be logicalis not always to be happy. I can onlyhope that if the postman and I meet againin the progress of eternity I shall find himcomposing poems.

He has brought nothing to speak of, onlythe daily newspaper published at Lahore.That in itself is sufficiently curious, to livein a place where the morning paper ispublished at Lahore. Still stranger, to thewestern mind, may be the thought—of ajournal produced in Allahabad. Allahabad,as a centre of journalistic enterprise, has theglamour of comic opera. Yet Allahabadhas its newspaper, and they print it verynicely too. However, it would be ridiculousto write an essay upon Indian journalismmerely because a Punjabi postman hasbrought in a newspaper.

That a day like this should sound anotherminor note is almost a thing to cry outagainst, yet it is on such days that they riseand swell in a perfect diapason of misery.[61]When the sun withdraws itself from thehuman consciousness things come up, Isuppose, from underneath. In the gaietyof yesterday perhaps I should not have seenthe coolie with the charcoal; he would havepassed naturally among the leaf-shadows,a thing to be taken for granted. To-dayhe hurts. His bag of charcoal is deplorablyheavy; he bends forward under it so farthat he has to lift his head to see beyondhim, and every muscle strains and glistensto carry it. His gait under his load is slowand uncertain and tentative, and I know ithas brought him to the wrong house; weare supplied for months with charcoal.

He has stopped to ask, and I find thathe has come quite a mile out of his way tothis mistake. With patience and submissionwhen I explained, he shifted his loadand turned from me toward the deferred relief,the further limit. The human beast ofburden is surely the summing-up of pathos—freeand enviable are all others comparedwith him. So heavy a toil fills one withrighteous anger against the inventor, so[62]primitive a task humiliates one for therace. nigg*rdly, nigg*rdly is the heritageof Adam’s sons. I must see that manstraighten his back.... There is no harmdone; you cannot have too much charcoal.

One questions, on such a day, whether itis quite worth while, this attempt by the assistanceof nature to live a little longer. Imyself am almost convinced that personsafflicted with the gift of sympathy would bewise to perish easily and soon, and shouldbe willing to do so, instead of throwingthemselves in the lap of the mother of usall beseeching a few more years and promisingto be very, very good and try to deservethem. Why protract, at the expense of upsettingall your habits and customs, an acutesense of undeserved superiority to cooliesand postmen; why by taking infinite painsand indefinite air prolong existence based onsuch a distressing perception, when by goingon with almost any good prescription youare pretty certain reasonably soon to takeyour comfortable place in the only democracywhich, so far as we know, is a practical[63]working success? For there is neither classnor competition nor capital, nor any kind ofadvantage in the grave whither thou goest,but one indisputable dead level of conditionand experience, with peace and freedom fromthe curse of evolution; not even the fittestsurvive.

Comfortable persons like, oh several Icould mention, who have no way of walkingwith another postman’s legs or bending withanother coolie’s back and who cannot understandwhy this should be called a distressfulworld which provides them regularly withtea and muffins, should go on naturally, tothe end. They have their indifferent prototypesamong the vegetables; though Ihave noticed that most flowers look withthe eye of compassion upon life. Theyfollow the simple lines upon which theywere created, by which to live and not toobserve is the chief end of man; there are agreat many of them, thousands, in their protectiveskins all over the world; and theyare only interesting of course to each other.Nevertheless no one should speak slightingly[64]of them, for we all number themamong our friends and relations, and constantlygo and stay with them. Besides, Idid not set out to be disagreeable at anybody’sexpense. It was only borne in uponme that for us, the unhappy minority whohave two sets of nerves, one for our ownuse and one at the disposal of every humanfailure by the wayside, the world is not likelyto become a pleasanter place the longer onestays in it. If continual dropping will wearaway a stone, continual rubbing will wearaway a skin, and happy is he or she, aftersixty or seventy years’ contact with the miseryof life, who arrives at the grave with awhole one.

I do not deny that there are poultices.One of them is a thing Tiglath-Pilesersometimes says—that it is stupid to talkabout the aggregate of human woe, since allthe pain as well as all the pleasure of theworld is summed up in the individual andlimited by him. A battle is really no morethan the killing of a soldier, a famine iscomprised in a death by starvation. The[65]unit of experience refuses to merge in themass; you cannot multiply beyond one. Ido not think much of this emollient, butsuch as it is I will apply it if another cooliecomes in with charcoal.

Seriously speaking, when your time comes—Ihope this makes nobody uncomfortable,but I never can understand why one shouldshirk the subject instead of regarding itwith the interest and curiosity it naturallyinspires—when your time goes, rather, andleaves you confronted with that vast eternityso full of unimaginably agreeable possibilities,which of all the parts and membersthat make up you, shall you be most sorryto relinquish? I do not refer to obscureorgans such as the heart and lungs, whichyou never notice except when they are givingtrouble, but the willing agents by whichyou keep in touch with the world. I amvery fond of them all, I am so accustomedto their ways and they know so exactly whatI like; I could not dismiss any of themwithout regret, but I find degrees in thedistressful anticipation. One’s eyes, for[66]instance, have given one more and keenerpleasure certainly, than any other organ;but I could close my eyes. One’s ears haveregistered all the voices one loves, and thesound of rain and the wind among the pines,but there is such a din in this world besidesthat very gladly I could close my ears.One’s feet have been most willing servitors,but one sees so little of them—would yourecognize a photograph of your own foot?For me it is the most grievous thing tothink that one will be obliged to abandonone’s hands. One’s hands are more thanservants, they are friends. One holds themin respect and admiration and personal affection,and in the end is not what we write uponthem the very summing-up of ourselves?And from the first spoon they carry to ourinfant lips to the adult irritation they workoff by tapping on the table how much theyhave done for one! Above all things Ishall miss my hands if I have to do withoutthem, and I shall be profoundly resentful,though I may not show it, when somebodyelse takes the liberty of folding them for me.

[67]Thisbe, coming out to say that she hasneuralgia, and will I ever come in to tea,demands to know what I have written there.I shall not tell Thisbe; it is a melancholyof mine own, compounded of many simples.Moreover, she would report it to Tiglath-Pileser,and they would take measures; Ishould be lucky to get off with an irontonic.

“Nothing about you, Thisbe.”

But in order to ascertain what I reallyhave said about her,—she has a hatred ofpublicity and I have to be very careful,—shegoes privily when I am immersed in tea,and possesses herself of the whole.

“But you are not going to die,” sheexclaimed with dismay and disapproval.“We have made quite other arrangements.You can’t possibly die, now.”

“Not immediately, in so far as I amaware,” I respond. “But there is no harmin looking forward to it a little,—on a daylike this.”

THERE are many methods ofgardening. I have known peoplewho were not content withanything but actually diggingand weeding, grubbing up the curly wetworms and the tough roots, and bendingtheir own backs over bulbs and seedlings.That is the thorough method, and thoughit is a little like sweeping and scrubbing outyourself the rooms your guests are to occupy,—andI suppose that would be a pleasureto some people,—it is the method thatcommands the most respect. Comparedwith it I feel that I cannot ask respect formine; I must be content with admiration.My gardening is done entirely with scissors,scissors and discretion, both easy to use.With scissors and discretion I walk aboutmy garden, snipping off the flowers that areover. Masuddi comes behind, holding my[69]umbrella, Sropo with a basket picks up thedevoted heads. I thus ignore causes anddeal directly with results, much the simplestand quickest way when life is complicatedby its manifold presentations and the caresof a family. And the results are wonderful,—Ican heartily recommend this method ofgardening to any one who wants to compassthe most charming effect with the leastexertion. A plant is only a big bouquet,and what bouquet does not instantly redoubleits beauty when you take away the one ortwo flowers that have withered in it? Afaded flower is too sad a comment upon lifeto be allowed to remain even on its parentstem, besides being detrimental and untidylike a torn petticoat. There should benothing but joy in the garden, joy and freshnessand coquetry, and the subtlest, loveliestsuggestion of art; anon by the diligentapplication of scissors and discretion I leavea flood of these things behind me every day.No doubt it is regrettable that the witheredrags in Sropo’s basket represent the joy andcoquetry of yesterday; this is the lesson of[70]life, however, and one cannot take accountof everything. Also you lay yourself opento the charge of being a mere lady’s-maid toyour garden; but worse things than that aresaid about nearly everybody.

Among the pansies I confess I feel ratheran executioner with my scissors, though therea rigorous policy most rewards me. Nothingis so slatternly as a pansy bed where someof the family are just coming out into theworld, and others are beginning to weary ofit and others are going shamelessly to seed.My pansies must all be properly coiffuredand fit to appear in society; when they beginto pull shawls over their heads and takedespondent views I remove them. Moreover,under this unremitting discipline, theywill go on and on, I shall have four monthsof pansies; it is in every way the right thingto do.

And yet it is a remorseless business, turningup the little faces to see if they havelived long enough to be ready for the guillotine.They look straight at you, and someof them shrink and some beseech, and some[71]are mutely resigned. I am no stern Atropos,I am weak before the fate I bring andoften let it go; and if by mistake I snipoff a bud I hurry on and try to forget it.Has the divinity who lays us low also, Iwonder, his moments of compunction—doeshe ever hold his hand and say “Onemore day”? Or does he snip here and thereat random “just choosing so”? Oh Setebos,Setebos, and Setebos, I do not like yourrôle, I am glad I am not an omnipotentWhim; I hope my garden thinks better ofme than that. The prevailing expressionamong pansies, by the way, is that of apprehension;I hope this is a botanical fact andnot confined to my pansies.

Nothing is more annoying in a small wayin this world than to see your tastes reflectedin those whom you consider inferior to yourself.You would rather not share anythingwith such persons, even a preference. Ihave to submit to this vexation. There areothers hereabouts, whom I have got into thehabit of looking down upon, who have exactlymy idea of gardening. I hasten to say[72]that they are not people in the ordinarysense of the term. Bold, indeed, would bethe non-official worm, in this bureaucraticstronghold, who should point to any gazettedcreature about him and say “That is a lesserthing than I.” Society would smile anddecline to be deceived. For this is an orderedOlympus, the gods go in to dinner byRegulation, their rank and pay is publishedin Kalends which anybody may buy, andthe senior among them are diligently worshippedby the junior as “brass hats.” No,it would certainly not be for the Tiglath-Pileserswho never sent back a parcel to thedraper’s tied up in red tape in their lives,not having a yard of it in the house for anypurpose, to give themselves airs over personswho use it every day. But even anon-official may look down upon a monkey.My offensive imitators are monkeys.

I would not object if they followed myexample in their own jungle garden, but theycome and do it in mine. Be sure I nevercatch them at it. When I am operatingthere myself they often leap crashing into[73]the rhododendrons on the khud and sitamong the branches watching me, wholetroops of them, but at a stone or a complimentthey are off, bounding with childishunintelligible curses down the khud. It isin the early dawn before any one is awakeor about, that they come with freedom andfamiliarity to walk where I walk and do asI do. I can perfectly fancy them mincingalong in impertinent caricature—I do notmince—holding up their tails with one handand with the other catching and clawing haphazardat the flowers as they imagine I do.Two hours later, when I come out to mournand storm over the withering fragments onthe drive not a monkey vexes the horizon.And they do what some people think worsethan this. They come and tear Tiglath-Pileser’scarefully bound grafts from theiradopted stems, and the young shoots fromhis little new apple-trees which have travelledall the way from England to live herewith us and share our limitations and ourshelf. These were only planted in February,and one of them, a beginner not three feet[74]high, had six of its very own apples on ityesterday. It is not a thing that happensoften, apples as soon as that, and six; andSimla is a place where there is so little goingon that we were more excited about them,perhaps, than you would be at home. Theywere small apples but they had to grow, andthey were growing yesterday. This morningwhile we still dreamed of our apples, agrey langur with a black face ate the wholecrop at a sitting. So now we can neitherbake them nor boil them nor measure themfor publication. They have disappeared ina grey langur with a black face, and though Iheartily hope they will inconvenience him Ihave very little expectation of it; thepunitive laws of nature matter little tomonkeys.

The jungle is full of wild fruit trees newlyburgeoned, but the monkeys prefer the cultivatedvarieties, they have found out theimproved flavour even in the young leaves.They find out everything, not merely forthe purposes of honest burglary, but for thecynical satisfaction of tearing it to pieces.[75]Thus, for one graft that a monkey devours,he pulls three out of their bandages andcasts them on the ground, where they areof no further use to either men or monkeys.What you plant with infinite pains they pullup by the roots. “These people have donesomething; let us undo it,” is the one thoughtthey ever think,—which shows, I suppose,that if there are politics among them theygovern strictly on party lines. It makes onevery ill-disposed toward them. A monkeyhas entered the pantry and bolted with a jam-poteven while my back was turned givingout the sugar to make more jam. A monkeyhas come in at the verandah door andabstracted all the bread and butter for afternoontea, while his accomplice sat upon thepaling to gibber “Cave!” This was legitimatelarceny, and we put up with it. Thisbesaid the poor monkey looked hungry, andshe would be content with Madeira cake,adding, out of the depths of her experience,that it was a pity the monkey that took thejam hadn’t taken the bread and butter too,—theywent so well together. We can be[76]indulgent to an entirely empty monkey; wehave enough in common with him to understandhis behaviour, and his villainous pirate’sdescent upon us is always good comedy.But when he picks the slates off the roof ofyour dwelling, when he privily enters yourhusband’s dressing-room and abstracts therazor and strop—Tiglath-Pileser, who wouldnot lend his to a seraph!—what kind ofpatience is there which would be equal tothe demand? Monkeys do not throw stonesand break windows; one wishes they would,since that would bring them within the cognizanceof the police and it might then bepossible to deal with them. A monkeywould hate solitary confinement above allthings. Often in a troupe bounding fromtree to tree overhead across the Mall therewill be one with a collar and a bit of rope orchain hanging to it, escaped from capture andfree again to range with his fellows the limitlesslunatic asylum the good God has endowedfor him in the jungle. Once he becameamenable to that sort of punishment hewould forsake for ever, I am sure, the haunts[77]of men; but he is not intelligent enough, orperhaps he is too intelligent.

There are so many of them. A monkeycensus is obviously impossible, but I believeif it could be taken it would show that everyresident official had at least one simian counterpart,—astatement which I hope will notgive offence on either side. An old fakiron the top of Jakko keeps a kind of retreatfor monkeys, a monastery with the mostelastic rules, where indeed the domestic relationsare rather encouraged than forbidden.He is their ghostly father, though responsibilityfor their morals seems to sit upon himlightly; he will call them out of the junglefor you in hundreds to be fed. Then yougive him four annas and come away. Apious Hindoo, with sins to expiate, woulddoubtless give more, and the fakir wouldprofess to spend it in grain for the monkeys.Here, by the way, we have an explanationof the incorrigibility of monkeys which hasnot hitherto occurred to ethnographers: theyconsume all the sins of the pious Hindoos.So they thrive and multiply and gambol all[78]over this town of Simla, its house-tops andshop-fronts, its gardens and its public places,with none to make them afraid. There aretwo small brown ones sitting on the palinglooking at me at this moment, knowing perfectlywell that I will never interrupt theflow of my ideas to get up and chase themaway.

Of course we try to make Atma responsible,and he declares that he persecutes themwithout ceasing, but we know better. Heclaps his hands at them and shouts, “Go,brother!” and that is all he does. Andbrother goes, to the next convenient branch.We have given Atma catapults and he tellsus that he uses them every morning beforeour honours are awake, but we are certain thathe hangs them on a nail. And indeed I donot think monkeys would be very shy of ahouse defended by mere catapults. Atma,however, has taken this business of Tiglath-Pileser’sfruit trees seriously. He had carefullyprotected every tree and graft withthorns, but the monkeys slid their handsin underneath, and reached up, and tore[79]down the young shoots with great strips ofthe tender bark as well. He was angry atlast, was Atma, and he asked for a gun.

“You would kill a monkey?” we exclaimed,“you would break your one commandment?”and Atma cast down his eyes.

“They are budmash,” said he (a wickedand perverse generation), “and they eat thework of we people. Why should they notbe killed?”

“No,” said the sahib, “you are a goodchurchman”—or words to that effect—“Iknow that you will not kill a monkey.”And we both looked at him piercingly.

“Nevertheless,” said Atma, cheerfullyand shamelessly recanting, “it would be wellthat a gun should be. A gun is a noise-makingthing. These bundar-people haveno shame, but it will appear to them thathere a gun is, and they will not come.Also,” he added ferociously, “for that long-tailapple-eating wallah, I will put a stone inthe gun.”

He had definite proposals to make aboutthe gun; it had plainly been weighed[80]and considered, not being a matter to belightly undertaken. It would not be wisefor the sahib to buy it in Simla, where theprice would be great and the article probablyinferior. By our honours’ favour he,Atma, would go to his own village, whereapparently they knew a thing or two aboutguns, and where, since they were all poormen, guns were also cheap, and there selectone for our approbation. If our honours’liking was not, he added, the gun could besent back, but our honours’ liking would be.

“Where is your village, worthy one?”asked Tiglath-Pileser.

Atma waved his arm across the purplemasses on the western horizon. “I willcome to it in three days,” he said, andTiglath-Pileser consented.

“He wants leave,” said the master. “Thegun is only a pretext, but it’s as good as adead grandmother any day. Let him go.”

But punctually on the evening of thetenth day Atma returned from his villageshouldering a gun. Pride was in his portand pleasure in his countenance. It was an[81]ancient muzzle-loader, respectable, useful,strong, in no way to be compared to a deadgrandmother. The sahib gave it the honourableattention which all sahibs have forweapons of character, while Atma stood byand spoke of it as it had been indeed arelative.

“Behold it is a beautiful gun, and it shallbring fear. Now I am but a gardener andknow nothing; but my father is a man withunderstanding of all things, and though therewere five guns to be bought in the village,he forbade the other four. My fathershowed me how the ribs of this were thickand its stomach was clean—is it so, sahib?—andhow it would speak well and loudly.But the price is also great. Though myfather spoke for three hours, till he was inanger, the price is also great.”

“How much?” asked Tiglath-Pileser.

“It could not be lessened,” said Atmaanxiously, “thirteen rupees.”

About seventeen and sixpence!

The gun speaks well and loudly, and themonkeys are much entertained by it. They[82]make off at a report with a great jabber ofconcern, but they have already discoveredthat it is a mere expression of opinion, withnothing in it to hurt, and they come backwhen their nerves are soothed to hear itagain. They know that you cannot shootyour own relations; they rest with confidenceupon the prehistoric tie, and oh, theypresume upon it! Too far, perhaps. Thereis a broad-faced Thibetan in the bazaar, behindwhose cheerful grin I am sure noconscience resides at all. Every year hesells me pheasants and partridges which Iknow he poaches from the Kingdom ofPatiala—I am sure he would pot a fellow-poacherfor a suitable consideration. WhenI suggest this, however, Tiglath-Pileser asksme if I like the idea of a hired assassin. Ido not like the idea. I would rather do itmyself, although even justifiable homicide hasnever been a favourite amusem*nt of mine.

Shoot a monkey? If it is a mother-monkey,and the baby that clings betweenher shoulders is a little one, you cannoteven throw a stone at her.

[83]I wonder if it is good for us to live amongthem like this. I wonder whether the constantspectacle of his original, glorious freedommay not produce a tendency to revertto his original habits even in a brass hat.It is a futile speculation, but there is a thrillin it. One would know him of course, bythe hat, and the bit of red tape hanging tohis collar....

What would you do about it—about thisplague, if it plagued you? And does it notmark, like a picture in a book of travels, thedistance that lies between us, that I shouldthus complain to you, not of sparrows orfoxes or rats or rabbits or any of the ordinarypests of civilization, but of being overrun—simplyoverrun—by monkeys!

THIS is going to be a day of roses,a grand opening day. They havebeen getting ready for weeks;every morning there has been ashow of pink promises, half kept, whitehints and creamy suggestions, and here andthere a sweet full-blown advertisem*nt; butso much has been suddenly done that Ithink the bushes must have sat up all nightto enable the garden definitely to make thismorning its chief summer announcement—theroses are out. The shelf holds a greatmany roses, its widest part indeed, wherethe house stands, is quite taken up by alarge bed of them which was meant to beoval, and only is not because no design inthis country can ever be described by evenan approximately exact term. That is atthe side of the house; the drive runs past it.There is another bed, an attempted oblong,[85]between the front door and the precipice byway of being devoted to them, and besidethat they have made room for themselvesin all the borders where there may or maynot be accommodation for other people;and they climb, as well, over every windowthat looks out into the garden.

It is our privilege to entertain largelyamong roses; I don’t believe there isanother shelf in Simla that holds so many.And I will hasten to say this for them, thatin all my social experience they offer thebest example of hospitality being its ownreward, which, of course, goes withoutsaying; but it is difficult to sit down for thefirst time in the year before the glory of theroses, and refrain from offering them a politenessof some sort, even one that might betaken for granted. I will add a complimentwhich is not perhaps quite so lamentablyobvious. There are people—moderns, decadents—whowill not subscribe to the paramountcyof the rose. They produce otherflowers—hyacinths, violets, daffodils—towhich they attach the label of their poor[86]preference. I will not dispute any taste intheory, but I will say this broad, generalthing which is evident and plain: once theroses are in bloom, nothing else in the gardenmatters. The rose may or may notbe queen, but when she appears the otherflowers dwindle into pretty little creatures ofno great pretension who may come out ornot at their convenience. You will admitthat if there is a rose in sight you do notlook at anything else. As to the daffodils,they came up a month ago, and I cut themand put them in the drawing-room andthought no more about it.

So the garden for me this morning meansroses (dear me, yes, those Gloire de Dijonsalone command it for yards in every direction),and the excitement of it, the pure keendelicious excitement of it, makes me wonderwhether a simple life led in a cane chairunder a pencil-cedar is not a better backgroundfor the minor sensations than themost elaborate existence indoors. But thatis another truism; elaboration is alwaysbad, it prevents one’s seeing things. An[87]existence obscured by curtains and frescoedwith invitations from the Princess wouldnever, I am surely convinced, afford me theexquisite joy and wonder, the sense of expandedmiracle, that reigns in me at thismoment. I must be allowed to say so,though nothing, I know, is so dull as thedetailing of another person’s sensations. Itwill be admitted that I do not often gush,that is a claim I make with a good conscience;and if I were forbidden to writeemotionally about roses this morning Ishould simply not write at all, which wouldbe a breach of good manners and a loss oftime. If the truth were confessed, I havewasted hours already congratulating themupon their happy advent, I have been muchled away among them from my fountainpen; idleness is so perfect with a rose.After putting down that stupidity aboutour hospitality being its own reward, I fellinto unnumbered asterisks, raptures in themanner of M. Pierre Loti, and only refrainedfrom making them because onewould not gasp too obviously after the[88]master. And now that I have pulled mychair into the thickest shade of the pencil-cedar—itis little better after all than aspoke to sit under, wheeling with the sun—andam once more prepared to offer you mybest attention, down upon me descendsDelia, waving a parasol from afar. I mustintroduce Delia; she is a vagabond and aninterruption, but I shall be extremely gladto see her.

I wonder whether anybody has ever feltthe temptation of dealing quite honestlywith the thousand eyes that listen to him, andputting in the interruptions as well as theother full-stops that occur in the course of amorning’s work in manuscript, saying inbrackets exactly where he was compelled toleave off on account of a rose or a Delia.One would then see precisely how far such aone’s flight carried him, and how long, afterhe had been brought to earth, it took hisbeating pinions to regain the ether. Onemight share his irritation at being interrupted,or one might wish him interrupted oftener;it would all depend. At all events it would[89]give the impression of engaging candour, andwould evoke—in me, certainly—the deepestsympathy, especially if the interruptionwere domestic. “Here I was compelled togive orders for dinner.” “At this point aman brought a bill with a cash discount onfirst presentation—and never again after.”“Just then Thisbe wished to know whetheror not she should send my love to AuntSophia. I said not.” I could weep withan author who put such things in. Butinstead, for the sake of dignity and smoothness,most of them try to ignore thesecalamities, like painters who rub a little oilinto the edges of yesterday’s work; and goon, stifling their emotions. There is probablya great deal of simple heroism concealedwith care in the pages of even a third-classnovel.

“Are you writing something clever?”asks Delia. What a demand she makesupon one’s reticence! “Finish it quicklyand pick me some roses.” So I finished itquickly, as you see. “I have passed thisway several times lately,” she explains, “and[90]have always resisted the temptation of runningin. But this morning something drewme down.”

“They haven’t been properly out before,”I remark. There is no use, after all,in being too obtuse. But I can’t go on jugglingwith the present tense. Delia is gonenow. I shall treat her as a historical fact.

“I hope you remember what a lot youused to send me last year,” she continued,“and how grateful I always was.” I said Iremembered. “Yes,” she sighed. “Youset yourself a very good example,” and atthat I got up and sacrificed to her, withgladness; because if Delia ever suffers cremationthe last whiff of her to float sadlyaway will be her passion for a rose. Thereare people who might dissolve in suggestionbefore I would offer up a single petal, whichis deplorable in me, for if you want a thingbadly enough to hint for it, you must want itvery badly indeed. Nevertheless, I think ita detestable habit, worse than punning; andnothing rouses in me a spirit of fiercer, moreimplacable opposition than a polite, gentle,[91]well-considered hint. Delia, of course,doesn’t hint, she prods, and you accept herelbow with delight, sharing the broad andconscious humour of it.

I am glad Delia dropped in, I want totalk about her; she holds to me so muchof the charm of this irresponsible impiouslittle Paradise that we have made for ourselvesup here above the clouds and connectedby wire with Westminster. A wireis not a very substantial thing, and that, ifyou leave out Mr. Kipling, is all that attachesus to the rest of the world. If an ill-disposedperson, the Mullah Powindah oranother, should one day cut it, we mightfloat off anywhere, and be hardly more unrelatedto the planet we should lodge uponthan we are to our own. The founders ofSimla—may they dwell in beatitude for ever—sawtheir golden chance and took it.Far in and far up they climbed to build it,and not being gods, but only men, theythought well to leave the more obviousforms of misery out of their survey plans.They brought with them many desirable[92]things, not quite enough, but many; povertyand sorrow and age they left at the bottomof the hill. They barred out greed and ruinby forbidding speculation; they warned offthe spectre of decrepitude by the “age limit”which sends you after fifty-five to whitenand perish elsewhere. This is an ordinancethat many call divine, for want of a betterword, but there ought to be a better word.They made it so expensive that the widowin her black takes the first ship to Balham,and so attractive that the widower promptlymarries again. But they also arranged withDeath that he should seldom show himselfupon the Mall, so nobody has rue to wear,even with a difference. From ten to fivewe compose Blue Books, at least our husbandsdo; the rest of the time we gallopabout on little country-bred ponies, andvigorously dance, even to fifty-four years,eleven months, and thirty days; and withfull hearts and empty heads—and this is theconsummation of bliss—congratulate ourselves.There are houses where they playgames after dinner. I myself before I became[93]the dryadess of a pencil-cedar, haveplayed games after dinner, and felt as innocentand expansive as I did at nine.

Delia draws her breath in all this, andopens a wicked Irish eye upon it—ah, whatDelia doesn’t see!—and is to me the gayflower of it, delicately exhaling an essenceof Paris. I approve myself of just a suspicionof essence of Paris. We are noneof us beasts of the field. I regret to saythat she misquotes. Her gloves fit perfectly,and she carries herself like a lily ofthe field, but she misquotes. It is thesingle defect upon what she would be annoyedto hear me call a lovely character.I mention it because it is the only one. Ifthere were others, I should allow them tobe taken for granted, and protect myselffrom the suspicion of exaggerated language.That does not look like an absolutely seriousstatement, but if I am writing nonsense itis entirely the fault of Delia. She is packedwith nonsense like a siphon, and if you sitmuch out-of-doors you become very absorbent.She had been paying calls, and I was[94]obliged to restore her with vermouth anda biscuit. She was bored and fatigued, andshe buried her nose in her roses and closedher eyes expressively. “The ladies ofIndia,” she remarked, “are curiously alike.Is it our mode of thought? Is it becausewe have the same kind of husbands?”

“Some are much better than others,” Iinterrupted.

“I saw eleven of us,” she went on withdepression, “one after the other, this morning.I couldn’t help thinking of articleson a counter marked ‘all this size five andelevenpence-ha’penny.’”

“Never mind, Delia,” said I, “you arenot at all alike.”

“Oh, and nobody,” she hastened to apologize,“could be less alike than you.”

“And yet we are quite different,” I replied;and Delia, with a glance of reproachand scorn and laughter said, “Youjackass!”

Now in anybody else’s mouth this termwould be almost opprobrious, but fromDelia’s it drops affectionately. It is an[95]acknowledgment, a compliment, it helps tolighten the morning. It is not everybodywho could call one a jackass with impunity,but it is not everybody who would thinkof doing it. I should not wish the epithetto become the fashion, but when Delia offersit I roll it under my tongue.

“I am convinced,” said I, “that thereis nothing in the world so valuable as personality.I mean, of course, to other people.As you justly remark, Delia, we are roundpebbles on this coral strand, worn smoothby rubbing against nothing but each other.It is an obscure and little regarded formof the great Imperial sacrifice, but I wishsomebody would call attention to it in theDaily Mail and wring a tear from the Britishpublic. You have still a slight unevennessof surface, my Delia, and that is whyI love you. If you had a good sharp corneror two, I should never let you out of mysight.”

“And to think,” said Delia, finely, “howlittle, in England, they prize and value theirprecious angular old maids!”

[96]“Oh, in England,” I replied, “I thinkthey are almost too much blessed. There issuch a thing as tranquillity and repose. Youdon’t want the personal equation at everymeal. In England, especially in the academicparts, you can’t see the wood for the trees.”

“And in America,” observed Delia, “Isuppose it must be worse.”

“Not at all,” I said out of my experience,“in America there is as yet great uniformityof peculiarity,” but this was going very farafield on a warm day, and we left the matterthere.

“I don’t think I like individuality inyoung men,” remarked Delia, thoughtfully,“In young men it seems a liberty, almostan impertinence.”

I can imagine the normal attitude ofyoung men toward Delia being quite satisfying,but I let her go on.

“I have just met an A.D.C. riding upthe Mall smoking a pipe,” she continued.“He took off his hat to me like a bandit.”Now Simla’s traditions of behaviour arevery strict and the choicest of them are[97]locked up in the tenue of an aide-de-camp.“It was quite a shock,” said Delia.

“All things are possible in nature, butsome are rare,” I told her. “It is doubtlessa remote effect of all this IrregularHorse in South Africa. You may live toboast that you have seen an aide-de-campride up the Mall at Simla smoking a commonclay.”

“It wasn’t a common clay,” she correctedme.

“But it will be when you boast of it,” Iassured her. “Come and see my homefor decayed gentlewomen.”

“What do you mean?” she cried, andwould have buffeted me; but I led her withcirc*mstance to the edge of the shelf, overwhich appeared lower down on the khud-side,another small projection which tried tobe a shelf and couldn’t, but was still flatenough for purposes. There were sitting,in respectable retirement, all the venerableroses that had outlived delight, the commonkinds and those that had grown little worthin the service of the summer.

[98]“They had to come out,” I explained,“and I couldn’t find it in my heart tothrow them on the ash-heap.”

“With all their modest roots exposed,”put in Delia. “Cruel it would havebeen.”

“So I planted them down there, and Isee that they’re not altogether neglected.They get an allowance of four buckets ofwater a day and a weeding once a fortnight,”I explained further, “but what I fancy theymust feel most is that nobody ever picksthem. I can’t get down to do that.”

“I’m sure they look most comfortable,”Delia assured me. “What do they careabout being picked? You lose that vanityvery early”—oh, Delia!—“What theyreally enjoy is to sit in the sun and talkabout their gout. But I know what youmean about throwing away a flower”—andDelia’s eyes grew more charming with thesentiment behind them. “Somebody gaveme a sweet-pea yesterday and the poor littlething faded on me, as we say in Ireland, andof course I ought to have thrown it away,[99]but I couldn’t. What do you think I didwith it?” She looked half ashamed.

“What?”

“I put it in my pocket!” said this dearDelia.

I  AM not getting on at all; it is dayssince Delia was here and I wroteabout her. There is certainly thisadvantage in the walls of a house,they make a fold for your mind, which mustbrowse inside, picking up what it can. Butexistence in a garden was not meant to beinterfered with by a pen; we have the bestreason for believing that Adam never wrotefor publication, much less Eve, who ofcourse, when one thinks of it, was absorbedat that time in the first principles of dress-making.I envy her that original seam;sewing is an ideal occupation in a garden.You can be for ever looking up and the handgoes on of itself; everything rhymes withyour needle, and your mind seems stimulatedby its perfunctory superintendence to spinand weave other things, often lovely andinteresting things which it is a pain to have[101]forgotten by dinner-time. I should verymuch prefer fine stitching to compositionout here if I could choose. One might thenlook at the sun on the leaves without theitch and necessity to explain just what it islike. Moreover, there is always this worry:you cannot make a whole chapter out of thesun on the leaves, even at different angles,and yet before that happy circ*mstance whatelse is there to say? But how little usethere is in crying for what one was notmeant to have. The fairy godmother whoput this unwilling instrument into my handand denied me a needle will have somethingto answer for if ever I meet her. MeanwhileI might as well confess that my fineststitching only makes mirth for Thisbe, and“lay a violence,” as Stevenson advises, uponmy will to other ends.

It is the very height of the season in thegarden. The roses have held several drawing-roomsand practically everybody is here.Sweet-peas flutter up two of the verandahpillars, the rest are dark with honeysuckleand heavy with Maréchal Niels. The[102]pansies are thicker than ever, and a veryelegant double wisteria, a lady from Japan,trails her purple skirts over the trellis underwhich the rickshaws go to their abode. Thecorn-bottles have come up exactly where Iasked them to, scattered thick among theleaves of the chrysanthemums which arealready tall and bushy. They are exactlythe right blue in exactly the right green andthey give a little air, not at all a disagreeablelittle air, of discernment and sophisticationto their corner of the garden. I would liketo venture to say that they resemble bluestars in a green sky, if I were sure of offendingnobody’s sense of humour. It is naturalenough to observe this and pass on, butwhy should one find a subtle pleasure in thecomparison, and linger over it? It must bethe same throb of joyful activity with whichthe evolved human intelligence first detecteda likeness between any two of the phenomenaabout it, and triumphed in the perception,attracted to wisdom and stirred toart. Those indeed were days to live in,when everything was mysteriously to copy[103]and inherit and nothing was exploited, explained,laid bare, when the great sweetthoughts were all to think and heroism hadnot yet received its molecular analysis, andbabies equipped with an instinctive perceptionof the fundamental weakness of socialisticcommunism were neither born northought of. These seem violent reflectionsto make in a garden, and they may well beobscured behind the long bed of poppiesand field-daisies and more bluets that runsalong the side of the house under the windowsthat support the roses. If you cantell me for what primitive reason poppiesand field-daisies and corn-flowers go welltogether I had rather you didn’t.

I have clumps and clumps of hollyhocks,and a balustrade of them, pink and whiteones, on each side of the steps that rundown from the verandah in front of thedrawing-room door. It is an unsophisticatedthing, the single hollyhock, like abashful school child in a sun-bonnet. Dowhat you will you cannot make it feel athome among the beaux and belles of high[104]life in the garden; it never looks reallyhappy except just inside a cottage palingwith a bunch of rhubarb on one side and atangle of “old man” on the other. Still itis a good and grateful flower in whateverstation it pleases the sun to call it. It getsalong on the merest necessities of life whentimes are bad and water scarce, and flowers,with anything like a chance, twice in the season.One cannot, after all, encourage classfeeling in the garden; there every one muststand on his own roots, and take his shareof salts and carbon dioxide without precedence,and the hollyhocks in my garden receiveas much consideration as anybody.

Petunias are up all over the place, purpleand white and striped. I knew by experiencethat we could have too many petuniason this shelf, so whenever a vague, youngpushing thing disclosed itself to be a petunia,as it nearly always did, I requested Atma topull it up. Nevertheless they survive surprisinglyeverywhere, looking out among thefeet of the roses, flaunting over the forget-me-nots,unexpected in a box of seedling[105]asters. Now if I were going to recognizesocial distinctions in the garden, which I amnot, I should call the good petunia a personunmistakably middle-class. Whether it is thisincapacity of hers to see a snub, or her veryfull skirt, or her very high colour, the petuniaalways seems to me a bourgeoise little ladyin her Sunday best, with her hair smooth andher temper well kept under for the occasion.I think she leads her family a nagging life,and goes to church regularly. One shouldalways mass them; a single petunia here andthere among the community of flowers ismore desolate and ineffective than mostmaiden ladies. Rather late this spring wediscovered a corner of the bed in front ofthe dining-room window to be quite empty,and what to put in we couldn’t think, andwere considering, when Atma told us thathe knew of a thousand petunias homelessand roaming the shelf. I quite believedhim, and bade him gather them in, with sucha resultant blaze of purple as I shall neverin future be without. The border justbeyond them is simply shouting with yellow[106]coreopsis, and behind that rise the darkbranches of the firs on the khud-side, andbetween these, very often in broken picturessharp against the blue, the jagged pointsand peaks of the far snows. All this everymorning the person has with her eggs andbacon who sits opposite the dining-roomwindow. I am glad to say that the othermembers of my family object to the glare.

Atma has a liberal and progressive mindtoward the garden; he is always trying tosmuggle some new thing into it. In out-of-the-waycorners I constantly come uponperfect strangers, well-rooted and entirely athome, and when I ask him by whose orderthey were admitted, he smiles apologeticallyand says that without doubt they will bevery beautiful, and that his brother gavethem to him. He can never tell me thename. “It will be so high,” he shows mewith his hand, stooping, “and the flowerwill be red, simply red it will arrive.” Ilook at it without enthusiasm, and weaklylet it stay. Generally it “arrives” a commonlittle disappointment, but once a great[107]leggy thing turned out an evening primrose,and I knew, before it was too late, that I hadbeen entertaining an angel unawares.

“To grow a little catholic,” writes Stevenson,“is the compensation of years.” Dearshade, is it so? In the spiritual outlook,perhaps, in the moral retrospect,—but inmatters of taste, in likes and dislikes? Youwho wrote nothing lightly must have provedthis dispensation, poorer spirits can onlywish it more general. I remember youthas curious and enterprising, hospitable toeverything, and I begin to find the middleyears jealously content with what they have.Who, when he has reached the age of allthe world, looks with instinctive favour uponanything new? An acquaintance, who maycreate the common debt of friendship; youare long since heavily involved. An author,who may insist upon intimately engagingyour intelligence,—a thing you feel, after atime, to be a liberty in a new-comer. Oreven a flower, offering another sentiment tothe little store that holds some pain already.Now this godetia. I suppose it argues a[108]depth of ignorance, but until Mr. Johnsonrecommended it to me in the spring, I hadnever heard of godetia. Mr. Johnson isthe source of seeds and bulbs for Simla, weall go to him; but I, for one, always comeaway a little ruffled by his habit of referringto everything by its Latin name, and plainlyshowing that his respect for you dependsupon your understanding him. I havewished to preserve Mr. Johnson’s respect,and things have come up afterward that Idid not think I had ordered. However,this is by the way. Mr. Johnson assuredme that godetia had a fine fleshy flowerof variegated colours, would be an abundantbloomer, and with reasonable care shouldmake a good appearance. I planted it withmisgivings, and watched its advent withaloofness, I knew I shouldn’t recognize it,and I didn’t. I had never seen it before, Ivery nearly said so; and at my time of life,with so many old claims pressing, I couldnot attempt a new affection. And I havetaken the present opportunity, when Atma’sback is turned, and pulled it all up. Besides[109]it may have been fleshy, but it wasn’t pretty,and the slugs ate it till its appearance wasdisgraceful.

I suppose our love of flowers is impregnatedwith our love of life and ourimmense appreciation of each other. Wehand our characteristics up to God to figurein; we look for them in animals with delightand laughter, and it is even our pleasure tofind them out here in the garden. Whocares much for lupins, for example; theyare dull fellows, they have no faces; yetwho does not care for every flower with aheart and eyes, that gives back your glanceto you and holds up its head bravely to anyday’s luck, as you would like to do.

But it is growing late. I can still see asplendid crimson cactus glooming at me fromhis tub in the verandah; the rest of thegarden has drawn away into the twilight.Only the honeysuckle, that nobody noticeswhen the sun is bright and the flowers alltalk at once, sends out a timid sweetness tothe night and murmurs, “I am here.” If Imight have had a seam to do, it would have[110]been finished; but instead there has been thisvexatious chapter, which only announces,when all is said and done, that anotherhuman being has spent a day in the garden.I intended to write about the appliedaffections.

But it is too late even for the misappliedaffections, generally thought, I believe,the more interesting presentment. HappyThisbe on the verandah, conscious of anotherbud to her tapestry, glances at thefading west and makes ready to put allaway. I will lay down my pen, as she doesher needle, and gather up my sheets andscraps, as she does her silks and wools; andhumbly, if I can get no one else to do it forme, carry my poor pattern into the house.

THE Princess has a hill almostentirely to herself. She livesthere in a castle almost entirelymade of stone, with turrets andbattlements. Her affectionate subjects clusterabout her feet in domiciles walled withmud and principally roofed with kerosenetins, but they cheerfully acknowledge this tobe right and proper, and all they can payfor. One of the many advantages of beinga princess is that you never have to putdown anything for house-rent; there is alwaysa castle waiting for you and a tax-payerhappy to paper it. The world will notallow that it is responsible to a beggar fora crust; but it is delighted to admit that itowes every princess a castle. It is a curiousworld; but it is quite right, for princessesare to be encouraged and beggars aren’t.

[112]The Princess is married to the Roy-Regent,who puts his initial upon Resolutionsand writes every week to the Secretaryof State; but it is the Princess who isgenerally “at home,” and certainly thePrincess who matters. The Roy-Regentmay induce his Government to make Resolutions;the Princess could persuade it, Iam sure, to break them—if she wanted to.Unfortunately we are not permitted to seethat comedy, which would be adorable. Shedoes not want to. She is not what youwould call a political princess; I have nodoubt she has too much else to do. To beginwith, only to begin with, she has to go on beingbeautiful and kind and unruffled; she has tokeep the laughter in her eyes and the gentlenessin her heart; she has to be witty withoutbeing cynical, and initiated without beinghard. She has to see through all our littledodges to win her favour and not entirelydespise us, and to accept our rather dull andvery daily homage without getting sick andtired of us. To say nothing of the Roy-Regentand the babies who have some claims,[113]I suppose, though we are apt to talk aboutthe Princess as if she were here solely tohold her Majesty’s vice-Drawing-rooms andlive up to a public ideal. All the virtues, inshort, which the rest of us put on of aSunday, the Princess must wear every day;and that is why it is so difficult and often sotiresome to be a real princess.

Fortunately the Simla Princess is notexpected to hold her commission for life.Her Majesty knew, I suppose, from herown royal experience, how it got on thenerves, and realized that if she required anythinglike that it would be impossible to getthe right kind of people. So at the end ofevery four or five years the Roy-Regentgoes home to his ordinary place in the RedBook burdened for life with a frontier policy,but never again compelled to drive out inthe evenings attended by four canteringSikhs, each Sikh much larger than himselfand shaking a lance. He may go on togreater things, or he may simply return tothe family estates; but in any case the Princesscan put her crown away in a drawer and[114]do things, if she likes, in the kitchen, whichmust be a great relief. Of course she cannever quite forget that she has been a princess,in commission, once. The thoughtmust have an ennobling effect ever after, andoften interpose, as it were, between the wordand the blow in domestic differences. Forthis reason alone, many of us would gladlyundertake to find the necessary fortitude forthe task; but it is not a thing you can getby merely applying for it.

To the state of the Princess belongs thatquaint old-fashioned demonstration, thecurtsey. The Princess curtseys to theQueen-Empress—how I should like tosee her do it!—and we all curtsey tothe Princess. This alone would makeSimla a school for manners, now that youhave to travel so far, unless you are by wayof running in and out of Windsor Castle, tofind the charming form in ordinary use.How admirable a point of personal contactlies in the curtsey—what deference rendered,what dignity due! “You are aPrincess,” it says, “therefore I bend my[115]knee. I am a Person, therefore I straightenit again,” and many things more graceful,more agreeable, more impertinent than that.Indeed, there is a very little that cannot besaid in the lines and the sweep of a curtsey.To think there was a time when conversationwas an art, and curtseying an accomplishment,is to hate our day of monosyllablesand short cuts, of sentiments condensed, andopinions taken for granted. One wondershow we came to lose the curtsey, and howmuch more went with it, how we could everlet it go, to stand instead squarely on ourtwo feet and nod our uncompromising heads,and say what we have to say. I suppose itis one of the things that are quite gone; wecan never reaffect it, indeed our behaviour,considered as behaviour, is growing steadilyworse. Already you may be asked, by aperson whom you have never seen before,whether you prefer Ecclesiastics or OmarKhayyám, or how you would define the ego,or what you think of Mr. Le Gallienne—matterswhich require confidence, almost acurtain. We have lost the art of the gradual[116]approach; presently we shall hustle eachother like kinetic atoms. A kinetic atom, Iunderstand, goes straight to the point.

We all love curtseying to the Princesstherefore, partly because it is a lost art, andpartly because it is a way in which we cansay, without being fulsome or troublesome,how happy we are to see her. There isonly one circ*mstance under which it is notentirely a privilege. That is when, dismounted,one meets her in one’s habit.Whether it is the long boots or the shortskirt, or the uncompromising cut, I cannotsay, but I always feel, performing a curtseyto the Princess in my habit, that I am in afalse position. Every true woman loves tostalk about in her habit, and tap her heelswith her riding crop; there is a shadow ofthe privileges of the other sex about it whichis alluring, and which, as the costume is sanctioned,one can enjoy comfortably; but it isnot arranged for curtseying, and there oughtto be a dispensation permitting ladies wearingit to bow from the waist.

Then the Princess passes on, leaving you[117]smiling. I have seen people continue tosmile in a lower key for twenty minutes afterthe Princess has gone by, as water will goon reflecting a glow long after the sunlighthas left it. The effect is quite involuntary,and of course it looks a little foolish, but itis agreeable to feel, and nobody, positivelynobody, can produce it but the Princess.Indeed the power to produce it would be acapital test for princesses.

If I were in any way in a position to submitprincesses to tests, I should offer that ofthe single pea and the twenty feather bedswith confidence to ours. Which is a prideand a pleasure to be able to say in these days,when ladies thus entitled are so apt to disguisethemselves in strong minds or bluntnoses or irritating clothes. It is delightfulto be assured that, in spite of this tendency,the Princess has not yet vanished, the Princessof the fairy tales, the real Princess, fromamong us, that such a one is sitting at themoment in her castle, not ten minutes’ walkfrom here, eating marmalade with a goldenspoon, or whatever she likes better than marmalade,[118]and bringing to life day after daythat delight in living which you must have,or there’s no use in being a princess. It ispossible that she may not put on her diademevery morning; there is no necessity forthat, since you could not imagine her withoutit; and if she prefers reading her Browningto watching her gold-fish, it is not in anyway my affair. Indeed, although she occupiesa public position, there is no one whom*ore readily accedes her right to a privatelife than I, though, of course, with the restof her subjects, I would prefer that she hadas little of it as possible. It is said that theRoy-Regent, knowing what would be expectedof her, was not content until he hadfound the most beautiful and agreeable Princessthere was; and I can well believe thathe sailed over seas and seas to find her,though it is probably only a tradition thatthey met at George Washington’s countryseat where the Princess was looking for trailingarbutus,—another lovely thing whosehabitat is the banks of the Potomac. And animprobable tradition, as George Washingtonnever encouraged princesses.

[119]Last night there was an entertainment atthe castle and among the guests a chief ofone of those smaller Indias that cluster aboutthe great one. He wore his own splendidtrappings, and he was a handsome fellow,well set up; and above his keen dark face,in front of the turban, set round with bigirregular pearls, was fastened a miniature ofthe Queen-Empress who holds his fealty inher hand. To him the Princess, all in filmylace with her diadem flashing, spoke kindly.They sat upon gold-backed chairs a little wayapart, and as she leaned to confer her smileand he to receive it, I longed to frame the pictureand make perpetual the dramatic moment,the exquisite odd chance. “Surely,”thought I, “the world has never been so graciouslybridged before.” Talking of GeorgeWashington, if the good man could haveseen that, I think he might have melted towardprincesses; I do not think, from allwe know of him, that he would have hadthe heart to turn coldly away and disclaimresponsibility for this one. I wish he couldhave seen it; yes, and Martha too, though[120]if anybody thought necessary to make troubleand talk about sacred principles of democracy,it would have been Martha. Martha, shewould have been the one. Her great andsusceptible husband would have taken aphilosophic pinch of snuff and toastedposterity.

I see that I have already admitted it, Ihave slipped in the path of virtuous resolutionand lofty indifference; I have goneback, just for a minute, into the world. Thereason I have neglected every flower in thegarden this morning to write about the Princessis that I have been dining with her. Itis so difficult to be unmoved and firm whenyou know the band will play and there willbe silver soup-plates, to say nothing of theRoy-Regent smiling and pleased to see you,and the Roman punch in the middle of themenu. At home, one so seldom has Romanpunch in the middle of the menu. Besides,now that I think of it, it was a “command”invitation, and I did not go for any of thesereasons, or even to see the Princess, but becauseI had to; a lofty compulsion of State[121]was upon me, and nobody would place herloyalty in question on account of a possibledraught. If there had been a draught andI had taken cold I should have felt an addednobility to-day; somewhat the virtue, I suppose,of the elderly statesman who contractsa fatal influenza at a distinguished interment,and so creates a vicious circle of funerals;but there was no draught.

The Princess lives in splendid isolation.If it were not for the Roy-Regent and thebabies, and the Commander-in-Chief andhis family, she would die of loneliness. Andof course the Bishop, though I can’t understandin what way one would depend muchupon a bishop, except to ask a blessingwhen he came to dinner. Kind and humanas the Princess is she lives in another world,with an A.D.C. always going in front totell people to get up, “Their Excellenciesare coming.” You cannot ask after thePrincess’s babies as you would ask after thebabies of a person like yourself; youmust say, “How are Your Excellency’sbabies?” and this at once removes them far[122]beyond the operation of your affectionatecriticism. When it is impossible even totake babies for granted the difficulties of thesituation may be imagined. The situationis glorious but troubling, your ideas oftenwill not flow freely in it, and is there anythingmore dreadful at a supreme momentthan to have your ideas stick? You findyourself saying the same thing you said thelast time you had the honour, which is themost mortifying thing that can happen inany conversation.

I often wonder whether the Princess doesnot look at our little mud houses and wishsometimes that she could come in. Thethought is a reckless one but I do entertainit. If you take a kind and friendly interestin people as the Princess does in us all, youcannot be entirely satisfied merely to addthem up as population and set them a goodexample. Nor can it be very interesting tolook at the little mud houses and observeonly that they have chimneys, and not toknow how the mantelpieces are done orwhether there is a piano, or if anybody else’s[123]sweet-peas are earlier than yours. In mydreams I sometimes invite the Princess totea. An A.D.C. always comes behind hercarrying the diadem on a red silk cushion,but at my earnest prayer he is made tostay outside on the verandah. We havethe best china; and in one dream the Princessbroke a cup and we wept together.On another occasion she gave me a recipefor pickled blackberries and told me of away—I always forget the way—of gettingrid of frowns. There is generally somethingto spoil a dream, and the thing thatspoils this one is the A.D.C., who will lookin at the window. All the same we have alovely time, the Princess ignoring all herprerogatives, unless I say something aboutthe state of the country, when she instantly,royally, changes the subject....

IF you choose to live on the top of oneof the Himalayas there are somethings you must particularly pay for.One of them is earth. Your mountain,if it is to be depended upon, is mostlymade of rock and I have already mentionedhow radically it slopes. So a garden is notat all a thing to be taken for granted. Sometimesyou have a garden and sometimes onlya shaly ledge, or you may have a garden to-daywhich to-morrow has slid down the hilland superimposed itself upon your neighbourbelow. That occurs in the rains; itis called a “slip.” It has never been ourexperience because the shelf is fairly flat;but it has happened to plenty of people.I suppose such a garden is recoverable, ifyou are willing to take the trouble, but itcould never be quite the same thing. Themost permanent plot, however, requires all[125]kinds of attention, and one of the difficultiesis to keep it up to its own level. Queersinkings and fallings away are always takingplace in the borders. Atma professes tofind them quite reasonable; he says theflowers eat the earth and of course it disappears.The more scientific explanationappears to me to be that the gnomes of themountain who live inside, have been effectingrepairs, and naturally the top falls in.It may be said that gnomes are not as a ruleso provident; but very little has yet beenestablished about the Himalayan kind; theymight be anything; they probably are.

This whole morning Atma and I havebeen patching the garden. At home whenyou buy a piece of land you expect thatenough earth will go with it for ordinarypurposes, but here you buy the land firstand the earth afterwards, as you want it, inbasketfuls. There is plenty in the jungle,beautiful leaf-mould, but it is against thelaw to collect it there for various reasons, allof them excellent and tiresome; you mustbuy it instead from the Town Council, and[126]it costs fourpence a basket. Tiglath-Pilesersays it is the smallest investment in land heever heard of, but it takes a great manybaskets, and when the bill comes in I shallbe glad to know if he is still of that opinion.Meanwhile coolie after coolie dumps hisload and I have heard of no process thatmore literally improves the property. Youwill imagine whether, when anything ispulled up, we do not shake the roots.

How far a sharp contrast will carry themind! I never shake a root in these ourlimited conditions without thinking of thelong loamy stretches of the Canadian woodswhere there was leaf-mould enough for acontinent of gardens, and of the plank“sidewalk” that half-heartedly wanderedout to them from the centre of what was acountry town in my day, adorned perhapsat some remote and unfenced corner by asmall grocery shop where hickory nuts in ahalf-pint measure were exposed for sale inthe window. I am no longer passionatelyaddicted to hickory nuts—you got themeat out with infinite difficulty and a pin,[127]and if it was obstinate you sucked it—butnothing else, except perhaps the smell in thecars of the train-boy’s oranges, will evertypify to me so completely the liberal andstimulating opportunities of a new country.The town when I was there last had growninto a prosperous city, and there were nohickory nuts in its principal stores, but atthe furthest point of a suburban sidewalkI found the little grocery still tempting theschool children of the neighbourhood withthis unsophisticated product and the half-pintmeasure in the window. I resisted thetemptation to buy any, but I stood and lookedso long that the proprietress came curious tothe door. And along that sidewalk youmight have taken a ton of leaf-mould beforeanybody made it his business to stop you.

We must acknowledge our compensations.Over there they certainly get theirleaf-mould cheaper than fourpence a basket,but they have nobody to make things growin it under a dollar a day. Here Atma, theinvaluable Atma, labours for ten rupees amonth—about fourteen shillings—and[128]cooks his own meal cakes. The man whoworks for a dollar a day does it in the earnesthope, if we are to believe his later biographer,of a place in ward politics and theeasier situation of a local boss. It would behard to infect Atma with such vulgar ambitions.He is so lately from the hands ofhis Creator that he has not even yet conceivedthe idea of accumulation. The otherday I told him that he might take a quantityof seed and surplus plants, and sellthem, and he would not. “I, how shall Isell?” he said, “I am a gardener. Thisthing is done by Johnson-sahib,” and helooked at me with amusem*nt. I calledhim by a foolish name and told him that heshould surely sell, and get money; but heshook his head still smiling. “By yourhonour’s favour,” he said, “month by monthI find ten rupees. From this there is foodtwice a day and clothes, and two or threerupees to go by the hand of an old manwho comes from my people. It is enough.What more?” I mentioned the future.“Old?” he cried, “God knows if I will be[129]old. At this time I am a work-doingwallah. When I am old and your honoursare gone to Belaat,[2] I also will go, and livewith my people.”

“And they will, without doubt, give youfood and clothes?” I asked.

“According as there is,” he said, “withoutdoubt they will give it,” and went on withhis work.

Here, if you like, was a person of shortviews and unvexed philosophy. A lectureupon the importance of copper coins trembledon my lips, but I held it back. A baseaim is a poor exchange for a lesson in content,and I held it back, wondering whethermy servant might not be better off than I,in all that he could do without.

Alas for the poor people who have to payat the rate of a dollar a day and mind theirown business into the bargain! Never canthey know one of the greatest pleasures oflife, to be served by a serving people. Thereis a spark of patriarchal joy, long extinctwest of Suez, in the simple old interpretation[130]which still holds here, of the relation of masterand servant, scolding and praise, favourand wrath; a lifelong wage and occasionallya little medicine are still the portion of theservant-folk, accepted as a matter of course,and “Thou wilt not hear orders?” ever aserious reproach. To all of us Outlandersof the East, it is one of the consolations ofexile, and to some of us a keen and constantpleasure to be the centre and source of prosperityfor these others, a simple, graphic,pressing opportunity to do justice and lovemercy and walk humbly with their God. I,personally, like them for themselves—whocould help liking Atma?—and of personsto whom they do not at all appeal I havemy own opinion. It is the difference ofrace, no doubt, which makes this relationpossible and enjoyable, the difference, andwhat we are accustomed to consider thesuperiority, of ours. At home all generousminds are somewhat tormented by a senseof the unfairness of the menial brand, andin the attitude of the menial mind there isnothing to modify that impression.

[131]Servants in this place are regarded asluxuries, and taxed. So much you pay percapita, and whether the capita belongs to abody entirely in your employment, or to onewhich only serves you in common withseveral other people, it doesn’t matter; allthe same you pay. Delia and I share adhurjee, or sewing man, for example, and weare both chargeable for him. This I nevercould reconcile with my sense of justice andof arithmetic,—that the poll-tax of a wholeman should be paid on half a tailor; butthere is no satisfaction to be got out ofTiglath-Pileser. Some people have morerespect for the law than it really deserves.I had the pleasure, however, of bringing himto a sense of his responsibilities when thetax-paper came in, from which he learnedthat no less than fifteen heads of familieslooked to him to be their providence.Under the weight of this communication heturned quite pale, and sat down hastily uponthe nearest self-sustaining object, whichhappened to be the fender. But as a matterof fact he liked the idea. Every Englishman[132]does, and this is why a certain measure ofsuccess attends not only his domestic buthis general experiments in governing theEast. He loves the service of an idea, andnothing flatters him so truly as his conceptionof all that he has to do.

The ear sharpens if its owner lives in thegarden. It is no longer muffled by the fourwalls of a house, and remote sounds visit it,bringing with them a meaning which somehowthey never have indoors, even whenthey penetrate there. Up here they principallymake one aware of the silence, whichis such a valuable function of sounds. Ishould like to write a chapter about the quietof Simla, but of course if one began like thatone would never finish. It is our vastsolace, our great advantage; we live withoutnoise. The great ranges forbid it; the onlything they will listen to is a salute from thebig gun, and they pass that from one toanother, uncertain that is not an insult. Andthe quenching comment in the silence thatfollows!

It is tremendous, invincible, taken up and[133]rewritten in the lines of all the hills. Itstands always before our little colony, with asolemn finger up, so that a cheer from thecricket ground is a pathetic thing, and thesound of the Roy-Regent’s carriage wheelsawakens memories of Piccadilly. We arefar withdrawn and very high up, fifty-sixmiles down to the level, and then it is onlyempty India—and the stillness lies upon usand about us and up and down the khuds,almost palpable and so morne, but with thesweetest melancholy. Consider, you ofLondon and New York, what it must be tolive on one mountain-side and hear a crowcaw across the valley, on the other. Ofcourse we are a Secretariat people; we haveno factory whistles.

This afternoon, however, I hear an unlicensedsound. It is the sound of an infantgiving tongue, and it comes from the quarters.Now there ought not to be a baby inthe quarters; it is against all orders. Noform of domestic ménage is permitted there;the place is supposed to be a monastery, andthe servants to house their women-folk elsewhere.[134]The sound is as persistent as it isunwarrantable; it is not only a breach ofcustom, but displeasing. How am I toreckon with it? I may send for Dumbooand complain. In that case the noise willcease at once; they will give opium to thechild, which will injure its digestion, and inthe future, as a grown-up person, it will enjoylife less because I could not put up with itscrying as an infant. I can report the matterto Tiglath-Pileser, which would mean an endto the baby, not illegally, by banishment.But is it so easy? One approves, of course,of all measures to discourage them about thepremises, but when in spite of rules andregulations a baby has found its way in, andis already lamenting its worldly prospects atthe top of its voice, in honest confidencethat at least the roof over its head will bepermanent, a complication arises. I cannotdislodge such a one. Better deafness andcomplicity.

Far down the khud-side an Imperialbugle. Abroad the spaces the mountainsstand in, and purple valleys deepening.[135]Among the deodars a whisper, not of scandal,believe me. A mere announcementthat the day is done. On the other side ofthe hill a pony trotting, farther and fainterreceding, but at the farthest and faintest itis plain that he goes short in front. Fromthe bazaar a temple bell, with the tongue ofan alien religion....

TO-DAY I think India, down belowthere on the other side ofthe hill, must be at its hottest.A white dust haze hangs overthe plains, but we know what is going onunder it; nearly all of us have gaspedthrough June more than once in those regions.It is the time when you take medicaladvice before committing yourself to a railwayjourney, even with the provision of acracked-ice pillow,—the favourite time tostep out of the train and die of cholera in thewaiting room. It is also the very specialtime for the British private soldier to goout in anger and kick with his foot the punkah-wallahwho has fallen asleep with theslack rope in his hand, so that the punkah-wallah,in whom is concealed unknown tothe private soldier an enlarged spleen, immediatelydies. There is then trouble and[137]high-talking, because of the people who considerthat the death of a punkah-wallah demandsthe life of a private soldier who onlymeant to admonish him, a contention whichcannot be judged without a knowledge ofthe relative values concerned, and an experienceof the temperature in which the rashand negligent act was committed. There isreason in the superstition which associatesgreat heat with the devil. Operating alone,it can do almost as much as he can.

The dust haze from the plains hangs allabout us, obscuring even the near ranges,impalpable but curiously solid. It has aflavour which it is impossible not to taste ifever one breathes through the mouth, andhour by hour it silently gathers upon thefurniture. It has been like this for a week,pressing round us at a measured distance,which just enables us to see our own housesand gardens. Within that space, the sunlightand every circ*mstance as usual. It isa little like living under a ground-glass bell.Do not choose the present time of year tocome to see Simla. You would have to[138]make a house-to-house visitation, and pieceit together from memory.

Even here, in the garden, much too hotthe eye of heaven shines. I have abandonedthe pencil-cedar, and taken refuge under atrellis covered with a banksia rose, which isthicker, and I have added to my defences apith hat and an umbrella. Notwithstandingthese precautions, we all gasp together to-dayin the garden; and I am inclined to agreewith the mignonette, which is not as a ruletalkative, that this is no longer the summer—exquisiteword—that we expect in Simla,but the odious “hot weather” which comesinstead in the country down below. Themignonette, by the way, stands to my discernment,immediately under the pencil-cedar.When I sowed it there in the spring,Tiglath-Pileser said, “It will never do anythingunder a conifer.” When it began toshow, he said again, “It may come up, butit will never do anything. Nothing everdoes anything under a conifer.” Atma wasnot of this advice. “Come up?” he said,looking at it sternly, “wherefore should it[139]not come up, if your honour wishes it?”Atma always takes this view; he seems tosuppose that the flowers, like himself, areabove all things anxious to please, and ifany of them fail in their duty, he implies,with indignation, that he will know thereason why. But his opinion is too constant,and I did not trust it about themignonette. I insisted, instead, that everymorning the fallen cedar spines should bepicked out of it, and the earth freshly stirredabout the roots; and I have a better patchof mignonette under my conifer than can beproduced anywhere else in the garden. Iam sure that the shade of a conifer is no lessbeneficial than any other kind of shade, exceptthat there is never enough of it; norcan I accept the theory that there is anythingpoisonous in the spines. They onlypack and only lie very closely together,never blown about like leaves, and so keepaway the air and light, and if you happen tohave the use of twenty or thirty brownfingers to pick them out, there is no reasonwhy you cannot produce quantities of things[140]beside mignonette under a conifer. Do anything?I do not know a more able-bodiedor hard-working flower on the shelf.

A thing like that offers one for some timeafterwards a valuable handle in arguments.

However you do it, there is no more deliciousexperience in life than to put somethingbeautiful where nothing was before, Imean in any suitable empty space. I havedone it; I have had the consummation ofthis pleasure for a fortnight. There was nogoldenrod in Simla till I went to Americaand got it. I make the lofty statement withconfidence, but subject to correction. Someone may have thought of it long ago, andmay be able to confront me with finer plumesthan mine. If this should be so, I shallaccept it with reluctance and mortification,and hereby promise to go and admire theother person’s, which is the most anybodycan do; but my pride does not expect sucha fall.

It is the Queen’s goldenrod, not thePresident’s, though he has a great deal ofit and makes, I think, rather more fuss[141]about it. A field flower of generous mind,it ignores the political line, and I gatheredthe seed one splendid autumn afternoon inCanada; so here on the shelf it may claimits humble part in the Imperial idea. Afriend of my youth lent herself to the project;she took me in her father’s buggy,and as we went along the country roads Isaw again in the light of a long absence, thequiet of the fields and the broad pebbledstretches of the river, and the bronze andpurple of the untrimmed woods that hadalways been for me the margin of thethought of home. The quiet of after-harvestheld it all, nothing was about but achipmunk that ran along the top of a fence;you could count the apples in the orchardsamong their scanty leaves; it was time totalk and to remember. And so, not byanything unusual that we did or said, butby the rare and beautiful correspondencethat is sometimes to be felt between thesentiment of the hour and the hour itself,this afternoon took its place in the datelesscalendar of the heart which is so much more[142]valuable a reference than any other. Whata delight it is when old forgotten thingsconstruct themselves again and the yearsgather into an afternoon! And is thereany such curious instance of real usefulnessfor hidden treasure in the attic?

We found masses of goldenrod, all dryand scattering, principally along the railwayembankment, which we took for a goodomen that it would be a travelling flower;and in the fulness of time it was given toAtma with instructions. His excitementwas even greater than mine, he nursed ittenderly, but it needed no nursing. Itcame up in thousands delighted with itselfand the new climate, overrunning its boxesso that Atma pointed to it like a proudfather. Then we planted it out along thepaling behind the coreopsis, and it immediately—thatis to say in three months’ time—grewto be five feet high, with the mostthick and lovely yellow sprays, which havebeen waving there against the fir-trees, asI said before, for the last fortnight. It hasquite lost the way to its proper season; at[143]home it blossoms in September and this isonly June,—but it appears to be ratherthe better than the worse for that, thoughit does seem to look about, as the Princesssaid when I sent her some, for the red sumachwhich is its friend and companion at home.It is itself like a little fir-tree with flatspreading branches of blossom, especiallywhen it stands in groups as they do, andthe sun slants upon it giving the sprays anedge of brighter gold so that it is the mostluminous thing in the garden. And thewarm scent of it, holding something so farbeyond itself and India, something essential,impregnated with the solace that one’s youthand its affections are not lost, but only onthe other side of the world!

Another delightful thing about thegoldenrod is the way the bees and butterfliesinstantly found it out. The spraysare dotted with them all day long, swayingand dipping with the weight of the littlegreedy bodies; their hum of content standsin the air with the warm and comfortablescent. “This is good fare” they seem to[144]say. “There are some things they makebetter in America.” I had never beforedone anything for a bee or a butterfly, it isnot really so easy, and I would not havebelieved there was such pleasure in it. “Lefleur qui vole”—is not that charming ofM. Bourget?

I suppose it argues a very empty planeof life, but these little creatures have animmense power of entertaining a personwho spends day after day in the theatreof their activities. I am reminded thathere in India one ought to have marvelloustales to tell of them, only Simla is not reallyIndia, but a little bit of England with anAdirondack climate and the “insect belt”of Central Asia; and things are not sowonderful here as you would think to lookat us on the map. Scorpions and centipedesdo come up from the plains and live in thecracks of the wall whence they crawl out tobe despatched when the first fires are lighted,but they have not the venom of those below.Scorpions Atma will take hold of by thepoison bags at the end of their tails, and[145]hold up in the air dangling and waving theirarms; and nobody even screams at a centipede.Millipedes which look much moreferocious but are really quite harmless oftenrun like little express trains across yourbath-room walls, and very large, black, gardenspiders also come there to enjoy thedamp. They enjoy the damp, but whatthey really like is to get into the muslincurtain over the window and curl up anddie. The first time I saw one of them inthe folds of the curtain I thought it wouldbe more comfortable in the garden andapproached it with caution and a towel, toput it out. Then I perceived from its behaviour—itdid not try to run away, but justdrew its legs a little closer under it, as youor I would do if we absolutely didn’t carewhat happened so long as we were left inpeace—that it had come there on purpose,being aware of its approaching end. I decidedthat the last moments of even a spidershould be respected, but every day I shookthe curtain and he drew his legs togethera little more feebly than the day before,[146]until at last he dropped out, the shell ofa spider, comfortably and completely dead.I admired his expiring, it was business-likeand methodical, the thing he had next to do,and he was so intent upon it, not in any wayto be disturbed or distracted, asking noquestion of the purposes of nature, simplycarrying them out. One might moralize.

Talking of spiders I have just seen a flycatch one. It was, of course, an ichneumonfly. One has many times heard of his habitof pouncing upon his racial enemy, puncturingand paralyzing him and finally carryinghim off, walling him up and laying an eggin him, out of which comes a young ichneumonto feed upon his helpless vitals; butone does not often see the tragedy in theair. He held his fat prey quite firmly inhis merciless jaws and he went with entrain,the villain! The victim spider and theassassin fly! One might moralize again.

It is hotter than ever, and the sunlightunder the ground-glass bell has a factitiouslook, as if we had here a comedy with ascene of summer. A hawk-moth darts like[147]a hummingbird in and out of the honeysuckle,and a very fine rose-chafer all ingreen and gold paces across this paragraph.I believe there are more rose-chafers thisyear than there ought to be, and Atma hasa heavy bill against them in every stage oftheir existence, but they are such attractivedepredators. When I find one makinghimself comfortable in the heart of a LaFrance, I know very well that on accountof the white grub he was once and themany white grubs he will be again I oughtto kill him and think no more about it;but one hesitates to send a creature out ofthe world who exercises such good tastewhen he is in it. I know it is quite toofoolish to write, but the extent of my vengeanceupon such a one is only to put himinto a common rose.

The birds are silent; the butterflies baskon the gravel like little ships with big sails.Even the lizards have sought temporaryretirement between the flower-pots. I amthe only person who is denied her naturalshelter and compelled to resort to an[148]umbrella. Tiglath-Pileser said the otherday that he thought it was quite time Imade some acknowledgment of the good itwas doing me. It is doing me good—ofcourse. But what strikes me most aboutit is the wonderful patience and fortitudepeople can display in having good done tothem.

I  HAVE had a morning of domesticdetails with the Average Woman. Idon’t quite know whether one oughtto write about such things, or whetherone ought to draw a veil; I have not yetformed a precise opinion as to the functionof the commonplace in matter intended forpublication. But surely no one should scorndomestic details, which make our universalbackground and mainstay of existence.Theories and abstractions serve to adorn itand to give us a notion of ourselves: butwe keep them mostly for lectures and sermons,the monthly reviews, the originalyoung man who comes to tea. All wouldbe glad to shine at odd times, but the mostluminous demonstration may very probablybe based upon a hatred of cold potatoes anda preference for cotton sheets. And ofcourse no one would dare to scorn the averagewoman; she is the backbone of society.[150]Personally I admire her very humbly, andrespect her very truly. For many of us, tobecome an average woman is an ambition.I think I will go on.

Besides, Thalia interrupted us, and Thaliawill always lend herself to a chapter.

The Average Woman is not affectionatebut she is solicitous, and there was the considerationof my original situation and mytiresome health. Then she perceived thatI had a garden and that it was a pretty garden.I said, indifferently, that people thoughtso; I knew it was a subject she would notpursue unless she were very much encouraged,and there was no reason at all why sheshould pursue it; she would always be avisitor in such a place, whereas there weremany matters which she could treat withfamiliar intelligence. I was quite right; shewandered at once into tins of white enamel,where it seemed she had already spent severalindustrious hours. We sympathizeddeeply over the extent to which domesticIndia was necessarily enamelled, though Isaw a look of criticism cross her face when[151]I announced that I hoped one day to berich enough not to possess a single articlepainted in that way—not a chair, not atable. I think she considered my declarationtoo impassioned, but she did not dissentfrom it. That is a circ*mstance one notesabout the Average Woman: she never dissentsfrom anything. She never will bedrawn into an argument. One could makethe most wild and whirling statement to her,if one felt inclined, and it is as likely as notthat she would say “Yes indeed,” or “Ithink so too,” and after a little pause ofpoliteness go on to talk about somethingelse. I can’t imagine why one never doesfeel inclined.

We continued to discuss interior decoration,and I learned that she was preparing ahearth seat for her drawing-room, one ofthose low square arrangements projectinginto the room before the fire, upon whichtwo ladies may sit before dinner and imaginethey look picturesque, while the rest ofthe assembled guests, from whom they quitecut off the cheerful blaze, wonder whether[152]they do. The Average Woman declaredthat she could no longer live without one.

“As time goes on one notices that fewerand fewer average women can,” I observedabsently, and hastily added, “I mean, youknow, that of course very portly ladies—”

“Oh, I see,” said she. “No, of coursenot.”

“So long,” I went on, pursuing the sametrain of thought, “as one can sit down readilyupon a hearth seat, and especially so longas one can clasp one’s knees upon it, oneis not even middle-aged. To clasp one’sknees is really to hug one’s youth.”

“I had such a pretty one in Calcutta,”said the Average Woman. “So cosy itlooked. Everybody admired it.”

“But in Calcutta,” I exclaimed with astonishment,“it is always so hot—and thereare no fireplaces.”

“Oh, that didn’t matter,” replied she triumphantly,“I draped the mantelpiece.It looked just as well.” And yet there arepeople who say that the Average Womanhas no imagination.

[153]“Talking of age,” she continued, “howold do you suppose Mrs. —— is? Somebodyat tiffin yesterday who knew the familydeclared that she could not be a day underthirty-seven. I should not give her morethan thirty-five myself. My husband saysthirty-two.”

“About a person’s age,” I said, “whatcan another person’s husband know?”

“What should you say?” she insisted. Iam sorry to have to underline so much, butyou know how the average woman talks initalics. It is as if she wished to make up inemphasis—but I will not finish that good-naturedsentence.

“Oh,” said I, “you cannot measureMrs. ——’s age in years! She is as oldas Queen Elizabeth and as young as the daybefore yesterday. Parts of her date fromthe Restoration and parts from the adventof M. Max Nordau—” At that momentThalia arrived. “And that is the age of allthe world,” I finished.

“We were wondering,” said the AverageWoman, “how old Mrs. —— is.”

[154]“You were wondering,” I corrected her.

“What does it matter?” said Thalia,which was precisely what I should haveexpected her to say. What does it matter?Why should the average woman excite herselfso greatly about this particularly smallthing? How does it bear upon the interestor the attractiveness or the value of anywoman to know precisely how many yearsshe counts between thirty and forty, at allevents to another of her sex? Yet to theaverage woman it seems to be the all-importantfact, the first thing she must know.She is enragée to find it out, she will makethe most cunning enquiries and take themost subtle means. Much as I appreciatethe average woman, I have in this respect nopatience with her. It is as if she wouldmeasure the pretensions of all others byrecognized rule of thumb with a view to discoveringthe surplus claim and properlyscoring it down. It is surely a survival fromdays when we were much more femininethan we are now; but it is still very general,even among married ladies, for whom,[155]really, the question might have an exhaustedinterest.

“What does it matter?” said Thalia. “Isee your fuchsias, like me, have taken advantageof a fine day to come out. What alot you’ve got!”

“Yes,” I said, without enthusiasm, “theywere here when we came.”

“Oh, don’t you like them?” exclaimedthe Average Woman, “I think the fuchsiasuch a graceful, pretty flower.”

“It is graceful and it is pretty,” I assented.There are any number of fuchsias, as Thaliasaid, standing in rows along the paling underthe potato-creeper; the last occupant musthave adored them. They remain preciselyin the pots in which they were originallycherished. Knowing that the first thing I dofor a flower I like is to put it in the groundwhere it has room to move its feet and stirabout at night, and take its share in the joysof the community, Tiglath-Pileser says compassionatelyof the fuchsia, “It is permitted tooccupy a pot;” but I notice that he does notselect it for his button-hole notwithstanding.

[156]Thalia looked at me suspiciously. “Whathave you got against it?” she demanded, andthe Average Woman chorussed, “Now tellus.”

I fixed a fuchsia sternly with my eye.“It’s an affected thing,” I said. “Alwayslooking down. I think modesty can be anoverrated virtue in a flower. It is also likea ballet-dancer, flaunting short petticoats,which doesn’t go with modesty at all. Ilike a flower to be sincere; there is no heart,no affection, no sentiment about a fuchsia.”

Thalia listened to this diatribe with herhead a little on one side.

“You are full of prejudices,” said she,“but there is something in this one. Nobodycould say ‘My love is like a fuchsia.’”

“It depends,” I said; “there are ladiesnot a hundred miles from here who thrillwhen they are told that they walk like thepartridge and shine like the moon. Ishouldn’t care about it myself.”

“No, indeed,” said the Average Woman.“That bit beyond the mignonette seemsrather empty. What are you going to putin there?”

[157]“Oh, nothing,” I said.

“I don’t know,” remarked Thalia combatively,“when there are so many beautifulthings in the world, why you should discriminatein favour of nothing.”

“Yes, why?” said the Average Woman.

“Well,” I replied defiantly, “that’s myspare bedroom. You’ve got to have somewhereto put people. I don’t like thefeeling that every border is fully occupiedand not a square inch available for any onecoming up late in the season.”

You can see that Thalia considers thatwhile we are respected for our virtues ourweaknesses enable us to enjoy ourselves.She accepts them as an integral and intentionalpart of us and from some of them sheeven extracts a contemplative pleasure. TheAverage Woman looks down upon suchthings and I did not dare to encounter herglance of reserved misunderstanding.

Thalia smiled. I felt warmed and approved.“Alas!” said she, “my garden isall spare bedrooms.” She lives, poor dear,on the other side of the Jakko and has to[158]wait till September for her summer. “Isee you keep it aired and ready.”

As a matter of fact Atma had freshlyturned the earth. I hold to that in thegarden; it seems to me a parallel to goodhousekeeping. The new-dug mould makesa most enhancing background; and anempty bed, if it is only freshly made, offersthe mind as much pleasure as a gay parterre.It is the sense, I suppose, of effort expendedand care taken, and above all it is a stretchof the possible, a vista beyond the realizedpresent which is as valuable in a garden asit is in life. Oh no, not as valuable. Inlife it is the most precious thing, and it issparingly accorded. Thalia has it, I know,but I looked at the Average Woman indoubt. Thalia, whatever else she does, willhave high comedy always for her portion,and who can tell in what scenes she willplay or at what premières she will assist?But the Average Woman,—can one notguess at the end of ten years what she willbe talking about, what she will have experienced,what she will have done? I looked[159]at the Average Woman and wondered. Shewas explaining to Thalia the qualities ofmilk tea. I decided that she was probablyhappier than Thalia, and that there was noneed whatever to be sorry for her. Shestayed a long time; I think she enjoyedherself; and when she went away of coursewe talked about her.

We spoke in a vein of criticism, and Iwas surprised to learn that the thing aboutthe Average Woman to which Thalia tookmost exception was her husband. I hadalways found the poor patient creatures entirelysupportable, and I said so. “Oh,yes,” replied Thalia impatiently, “in themselvesthey’re well enough. But didn’t youhear her? ‘George adores you in “LadyThermidore.”’ Now that annoys me.”

“Does it?” said I. “Why shouldn’tGeorge adore you in Lady Thermidore ifhe wants to, especially if he tells his wife?”

“That’s exactly it,” said Thalia. “If hereally did he wouldn’t tell her. But hedoesn’t. She just says so in order to giveherself the pleasure of imagining that I am[160]charmed to believe that George—herGeorge—”

“I see,” I said, sympathetically.

“They are always offering their husbandsup to me like that,” continued Thalia,gloomily. “They expect me, I suppose, toblush and simper. As if I hadn’t a verymuch better one of my own!”

“They think it the highest complimentthey can pay you.”

“Precisely. That’s what is so objectionable.And besides it’s a mistake.”

“I shall never tell you that Tiglath-Pileseradores you,” I stated.

“My dear, I have known it for ages!”said Thalia, en se sauvant, as they do inFrench novels.

Perhaps the Average Woman is a little tiresomeabout her husband. She is generallycharged with quoting him overmuch. Idon’t think that; his opinions are often usefuland nearly always sensible, but she certainlyassumes a far too general interest forhim as a subject upon which to dwell forlong periods. Average wives of officials are[161]much more distressingly affected in this waythan other ladies are; it is quite a localpeculiarity of bureaucratic centres. Theycherish the delusion, I suppose, that in somedegree they advance the interests of theseunfortunate men by a perpetual public attitudeof adoration, but I cannot believe it isaltogether the case. On the contrary, I amconvinced that the average official husbandhimself would find too much zeal in therecounting of his following remarkable traits.His obstinate and absurd devotion to duty.“In my husband the Queen has a good bargain!”His remarkable youth for the posthe holds,—I remember a case where mybudding affection for the wife of an AssistantSecretary was entirely checked by thiscirc*mstance. The compliments paid himby his official superiors, those endless compliments.And more than anything perhaps,his extraordinary and deplorable indifferenceto society. “I simply cannot get my husbandout; I am positively ashamed ofmaking excuses for him.” When her husbandis served up to me in this guise I feel[162]my indignation rising out of all proportionto its subject, always an annoying experience.Why should I be expected to accept hisfoolish idea that he is superior to society,and admire it? Why should I be assumedto observe with interest whether he comesout; why indeed, so far as I am concerned,should he not eternally stay in?

It comes to this that one positively admiresthe woman who has the reticence tolet her husband make his own reputation.

What offends one, I suppose, is the lackof sincerity. A very different case is thatof the simple soul who says, “Tom will notallow me to have it in the house,” or “Jimabsolutely refuses to let me know her.”One hears that with the warm thrill ofmutual bondage; one has one’s parallelready—the tyranny I could relate ofTiglath-Pileser! The note of grievance isprimitive and natural; but the woman whobutters her husband in friendly council,what excuse has she?

THE rains have come. They weredue on the fifteenth of Juneand they are late; this is thetwentieth. The whole of yesterdayafternoon we could see them beating upthe valleys, and punctually at midnight theyarrived, firing their own salute with a greatclap of thunder and a volley on the roof—itis a galvanized roof—that left no room fordoubt. You will notice that it is the rainsthat have come and not the rain; there ismore difference than you would imaginebetween water and water. The rain is agentle thing and descends in England; therains are untamed, torrential, and visit partsof the East. They come to stay; for threegood months they are with us, pelting thegarden, beating at the panes. It would bedifficult for persons living in the temperatezone to conceive how wet, during thisperiod, our circ*mstances are.

[164]One always hears them burst with a feelingof apprehension; it is such a violentmovement of nature, potential of damage,certain of change; and life is faced nextmorning at breakfast with a gloom which isnot assumed. A dripping dulness varied bydeluges, that is the prospect for the nextninety days. The emotions of one who willbe expected to support it under an umbrella,with the further protection of a conifer only,are offered, please, to your kind consideration.I dreamed as the night wore on ofshipwreck in a sea of mountains on a canechair, and when I awoke, salvaged in mybed, it was raining as hard as ever.

At breakfast Tiglath-Pileser said, uneasily,that it would probably clear up in half anhour. “It simply can’t go on like this,”remarked Thisbe, and I saw that they werethinking of me, under the conifer. Whenyou suspect commiseration the thing to dois to enhance it. “Clear up?” said I withindifference. “Why should it clear up? Ithas only just begun.”

“It is all very well to sit out in the rain[165]in England,” said Thisbe; “but this is quitea different thing.”

“Oh dear, no,” said I. “There is onlya little more of it.”

“Well, if it continues to pelt like this, ofcourse—” began Tiglath-Pileser.

“I shall take the old green gamp,” I putin, “it’s the biggest.”

They glanced at each other; I perceivedthe glance though my attention was supposedto be given to a curried egg. A wordof petition would have installed me at onceby the drawing-room fire; but a commandingpride rose up in me and forbade the word.Tiglath-Pileser, who holds to carrying outa system thoroughly, asked me thoughtfullyif I wouldn’t have a little marmaladewith my egg; and the matter dropped.

Half an hour afterwards I was encampedunder the pencil-cedar and the old greenumbrella. You cannot screen your wholeperson in a long chair with these two things,and I added to myself a water-proof sheet.It was a magnificent moment. The rain wascoming down straight and thick with a loud,[166]steady drum, small flat puddles were dancingall about me, and brooks were running undermy chair—I sat calm and regardless. Iwas really quite dry and not nearly so uncomfortableas I looked; but I presented aspectacle of misery that afforded me a subtlejoy. The only drawback was that there wasnobody to witness it; Thisbe and Tiglath-Pileserseemed by common consent to withdrawthemselves to the back parts. OnlyDumboo circulated disconsolately about theverandah, with the heavy knowledge thatnow without doubt it was proved that themistress was mad; and I wished to bethought indifferent only, not insane. Heseemed to think that I required surveillance,and kept an anxious eye upon me until Isent him about his business.

It was a day of great affairs in the garden;I could hear them going on all round me.To everybody there it meant a radical changeof housekeeping; some families were comingout and some going in, some moving up andsome down, while others would depart, almostat once, for the season. No wonder[167]they all talked at once in an excited murmurunder the rain. I could hear themurmur, but I could not distinguish thevoices; between the rain and the umbrella,most of the garden was hidden from me, andit is a curious fact that if you cannot see aflower you cannot hear what it says. Onlythe pansy beds came within eyesight andear-shot, and there I could see that consternationand confusion reigned. It is thebeginning of the end for the pansies; theylove rain in watering-pots, morning andevening, and a bright sun all day, andthis downpour disconcerts them altogether.They cry out, every one of them, againstthe waste and improvidence of it. For anothermonth they will go on opening freshbuds and uttering fresh protests, plainly disputingamong themselves whether, undersuch adverse circ*mstances, life is worth living;and one sad day I shall find that theyhave decided it is not. I am always sorryto see the last pansy leave the garden; itgoes with such regret.

I intended to be undisturbed and normal,[168]and to accomplish pages; but I find thatyou cannot think in heavy rain. It is toofierce, too attacking. You know that it willnot do you any harm, but your nerves arenot convinced; you can only wait in a kindof physical suspense, like the cows in thefields, whose single idea I am sure is, “Howsoon will it be over?”

Well, I knew it would not be over forninety days, and already there were dropson the inside of the green umbrella. I wasseriously weighing the situation when Tiglath-Pileserappeared upon the verandah.He had come out to say that the rains alwaysbroke with thunder-storms, that thiswas practically a thunder-storm, and that heconsidered my situation, under the tallesttree in the neighbourhood, too exposed.He had to think of something; that waswhat he thought of, and I was pleased tofind it convincing. “Shall I take it forgranted,” I inquired blandly, “whenever itcomes down in bucketfuls like this, thatthere is thunder in the air, and come in?”and Tiglath-Pileser said that he thought itwould be as well.

[169]So I am in—in to spend the day. Itdoes not sound in any way remarkable,which shows how entirely custom is ourmeasure for the significance of things. It isreally an excursion into the known andfamiliar, become unusual and exciting by banishment;and it brings one fresh sense ofhow easy it would be to make life—almostany—vivid and interesting by a discreet andcareful use of abstinence. I am not praisingthe pleasures of the anchorite; his is anundiscriminating experience upon quite alower plane; but, oh, restraint, the disciplineof the greedy instinct, how it brings out thecolours of life! To have learnt this lessononly makes it worth while to have comethrough the world. People to whom a roofis normal have never, I venture to say,known the sense of shelter I feel to-day, thefull enclosure of the four walls, the independenceof the dry floor. The hill-manwho watches the long slant of the rain intothe valley from a cave out there on the roadto Thibet, where a little heap of cold embersoften tell of such a one’s refuging, may offer[170]me intelligent sympathy—I should criticiseany one else’s.

Meanwhile I have been criticising otherthings. The house is a place of shelter;it is also a place of confinement, and thereare corners where the blessed air does notsufficiently circulate. This as an abstractionis generally accepted, but unless you passa good deal of time out-of-doors you cannever know it as a fact. It is not perhapsthe happiest result of living in the openair that to the nose thus accustomed thereare twice as many smells in the world asthere were before. I have been discoveringthem in various places this morning, herea suggestion of kerosene, there a flavour ofcheese, in another spot a reminiscence ofTiglath-Pileser’s pipe. I even pretend toknow that it was his meerschaum and nothis brier, though Thisbe thinks this preposterous.Thisbe thinks me preposterousaltogether, vainly sniffing for the odourswhich offend me, and begging me to desistfrom opening windows and letting in therain. Dumboo, more practical, goes carefully[171]round after me, and closes each in turnas soon as I have left the room, with anair of serious perturbation,—who can bejewabdeh—answer-giving—for the acts ofa mad mistress? I have finally subsidedas near as possible to the window in thebreakfast-room, with the garden and therain outside. It has been given me to understandthat I am to have a present shortly,and I may choose my present. For sometime I have been vainly revolving the matter;the world seems so full of desirablearticles that one does not want; but herean inspiration visits me—I will have anotherwindow in the breakfast-room. Thereis plenty of room for it, nothing but a wallin the way. Where this blank wall, coveredwith wall-paper, now blocks the vision, anothersquare of garden shall appear; it willlet in a line of blue hill, most of the pencil-cedar,a corner of the rose-bushes, and awhole company of poppies and corn-bottles.A carpenter from Jullunder will make itin a week,—Jullunder thrives upon theexport of carpenters to the hills,—and it[172]will be a most delicious present, giving apleasure every morning freshly new, muchbetter than anything that would have to belocked up in a drawer. Also, when we goaway I shall be able, without a pang of self-sacrifice,to leave it behind for the enjoymentof other people, which is quite themost pleasing kind of benefit to confer.

Very heavily it descends, this first burstof the rains. The garden is bowed underit; from far and near comes the sound ofrushing water down the khud-sides. Thegreat valleys beyond the paling are brimfulof grey, impenetrable vapour, as if the clouds,even in dissolving, were too heavy to carrythemselves. From my asylum nothingappears to stir or speak except the rain.The day weeps fast and stormily, as ifnight might fall before she had half deploredenough.

It would be dull at the window butfor the discovery I have made in the banksiaover the arched trellis which stands, for nopurpose at all, across the garden walk thatruns round the roses. Here I strongly[173]suspect the brown bird has an establishment,and a sitting hen. So long as I myselfsat in the garden I never guessed it, hewas too clever; but he did not dream, Isuppose, that I would take to spying uponhim in ambush like this, and from here hisconduct looks most husbandly. The brownbird joined us one afternoon about a fortnightago, while we were having tea on theverandah. He perched on a flower-pot,and hinted, in the most engaging way, thatthe ground was baked and worms werescarce, and we made him feel so welcome tocrumbs that he has constantly dropped inupon us since. He is most venturesomewith us; he will run under our chairs andunder the table, and he loves to slip in andout of hiding among the flower-pots. Hegoes with little leaps and bounds, like asquirrel; and he whistles with such melodythat one might very well think him a thrush.I thought him a thrush, until one afternoonTiglath-Pileser said aggressively, “I don’tbelieve that bird is a thrush.”

“Pray, then,” said I, “what is he?”

[174]“He belongs, nevertheless,” said Tiglath-Pileserjudicially, “to the Passeres.”

“If I asked your name,” said Delia, whowas there, “I should not be grateful to betold that you were one of the primates,” andwe laughed at the master of the house.

“Wait a bit,” said he, “I should call hima robin.”

“He’s got no red breast,” I broughtforth, out of the depth of my ignorance.

“He has a reddish spot under each ear,”said Tiglath-Pileser, “and mark how histail turns up.”

“I am no ornithologist,” I said. “Histail turns up.”

“How little one realizes,” quoth Thisbe,pensively, “that a bird has ears.”

“I think,” said Tiglath-Pileser, “that Ican decide this matter,” and disappearedinto the house.

“He has gone to get a book,” saidDelia, “that will settle you, dear lady,you and your thrush,” and presently hecame out triumphant, as she said, with“Wanderings of a Naturalist in India.”

[175]“‘Although differing altogether in thecolour of its plumage from the Europeanrobin,’” he read aloud, “‘there is greatsimilarity in their habits. It frisks beforethe door, and picks up crumbs, jerking itstail as it hops along. How often haveassociations of home been brought to mindby seeing this pretty little warbler pursuingits gambols before the door of an Easternbungalow!’”

“Well,” said I, “not often, because ofcourse we didn’t recognize it, but in futurethey always will be,” and at that momentthe pretty little warbler put himself in profileon the paling before us, and threw outhis little waistcoat, and threw back his littlehead and whistled, and we all cried out thathe had established his identity, there couldnot be any doubt of it, in face of that braveand dainty attitude. There are some thingsa bird never could pick up.

So it is a robin that has gone to housekeepingthere in the close-cut banksia. Heis a devoted mate; he knows by heart, perhapsby experience, how necessary it is to[176]encourage, dull little wives on the nest; and,neglectful of the hard-beating storm, heperches as near her as may be and sendsout every dulcet variation he can think of.To the prisoner in the house it seems asupreme note of hope, this bird singing inthe rain.

I  FIND it desirable to sit more andmore out in the rain. A littlestouter protection, a little more determination,and the cane chair willsoon weather anything. There are stilltempestuous half-hours which drive me asfar as the verandah, but I am growing everyday more used to the steady beat and dripabout my defences, and I now know preciselythe term of resistance of every umbrellain the house. One after the otherI put them to the proof; on a really wetday I discourage three or four. An occasionalpelting of my person does not troubleme, I am very water-proof; but when dropsdescend upon this fair page and confuse itssentiments I call loudly for another umbrella.Constantly, no doubt, the cane chairunder the conifer grows a strangerspectacle; but my family have become accustomed[178]to it and there is no one else tosee. The occasional rickshaw that passesalong the road above pays attention to nothing,but goes as fast as it can, with the hoodup, like a deranged beetle, and if any onerides past it is with bent head and flyingmackintosh. I have the world very muchto myself, most of the mountains when Ican see them, and all the garden. And it isfull of rewards and satisfactions, this rainyworld. The wind that pushes the cloudsup here blows over a thousand miles of sunand sand and draws a balm from the desertto mingle with its cool dampness, deliciousto breathe, like a cooled drink to the lungs.It cannot be tasted in the house because ofthe prevailing flavour of carpets and curtains.Nor can anybody know, who hasnot sat out under it, the delight of the slowtermination of a shower, the spacing linesand the sparser drop-dancers on the gravel,the jolly irregular drip from the branches onyour umbrella, the wraiths of mist skimmingover the drive and the feint thin veil slantingagainst the deodars into which it all dissolves.[179]So invariably we are careful to waitin the house “until it is over,”—quite over.A pencil-cedar too, very wet, with a drop atthe end of every spine, and a soft gray lightshining through it, is a good thing to lookup into. “As if it were candied,” as Thisbepolitely conceded, and departed at once intothe house out of the damp.

For the first time, I have this year a rainsgarden. It is a thing anybody may have,but very few people do. As a rule gardensin our part of the world are handed over inthe rains to slugs and their own resources.The resources of a garden, left to itself, arehardly ever suspected. It is impossible,people say, to keep it down, and they sitcomfortably in the house looking out uponthe impossibility. In the hot weather theysay it is impossible to keep it up. Theycomplain that they are here for so short atime that it is not worth while to do anything.Most people are transitory in ourlittle town, certainly; it is generally only ayear or two in Paradise and then down againinto the Pit, but why that year or two should[180]be thought less worth than others of theirlives I never can quite understand. Especiallyas a flower takes such a little while tocome to you. But people are just people.

To me of course, peculiarly situated undera conifer, a rains garden was a peremptorynecessity, and I have had it in my mind’seye for months. There was an unavoidablefortnight, when the earlier flowers were goingout and the others only answering my invitationas it were, promising to come, whichwas not quite cheerful. The sweet-peasfluttered for days about the verandah beforethey would submit to be beaten down, andthe roses, those that were left, looked up asif they had been for a long time in ladies’bonnets. The mignonette grew leggy andcurious, spreading in all directions andforgetting to flower, with a smell, moreover,like decaying cabbage, deplorable inmignonette; and the petunias went off withdraggled petticoats, which must have beendistressing to a flower whose principal virtueis her neat and buxom appearance. Thesnapdragons and the corn-bottles are just[181]holding on anyhow and the phloxes seemnot to know what to do; but the poppieswere dashed out in a single night, and quantitiesof things in pots have been consideratelyremoved by Atma to the back parts, thereto meet dissolution in private.

But now everything that craves or lovesthe rain is coming on. I should not be soproud of my potato-vine; I did not plantit, but somebody probably, who looked downfrom here and saw the flame of the mutinylight up the land. He has my thanks; hehas left for himself a steadfast memorial.So eager is it to do him credit that everyhot weather shower a twig will clothe itselfin white; and now, when the time is fullycome it trembles everywhere over the palingagainst the sky and heaps up its blossomsamong its glossy leaves like snow. That isnot idle simile; it takes blue shadows andfills up chinks, it is exactly like snow. Theverandah is odorous with lilies, from the tallcurling Japanese kind, as opulent as a lilycan be to the simple and delicate day liliesthat love this world so little. All the lilies[182]live in the verandah except the strenuouspeppered orange kind which Tiglath-Pileserdeclares is not the tiger-lily and which bearsitself most gallantly under the rain, standinglike a street lamp in the darkest corners,and those strange crimson and yellow Tigridæ(I am sorry I do not know their Christianname) that roll up so unexpectedly withus in the middle of the morning. I mustsay I like a flower that you can depend upon.Mr. Johnson speaks contemptuouslyof the Tigridæ, so I suppose they are commonenough, but to me they were new andvery remarkable, and when they began tocome out I asked Thalia to lunch to seethem. When she arrived, at two o’clock,every one of them had gone into the likenessof a duck’s head, with a satirical red andyellow eye that almost winked at us. I wasprepared to ask Thalia to admire the Tigridæ,but such conduct puts one off. I amstill willing to concede that it is wonderful;but you do not want a flower to astonishyou; its functions are quite different. Ihave taken occasion to point out this to[183]Thisbe, when she complains that she is notoriginal.

Tall stocks of tuberose—quite three feet—standamong the rose-bushes in front ofthe drawing-room windows; but they turnbrown almost as fast as they open; nextyear I will plant them under the eaves formore shelter. A clump of cannas, spikesof flame, waving splendid Italian and Africanleaves, red-brown and brown-green, withcoleas of all colours sitting round their feet,lord it at chosen corners on each side of thedrive. Even on a shelf you may have features;it is all a matter of relation. If yourscale is only simple enough the most surprisingincident is possible; and of this themoral certainly lies in the application of it.Masses of pink and white hydrangeas on thisprinciple make the garden look like a Japaneseprint; they are so big and blotchy andyet so simply, elegantly effective. They aredistributed wherever a tub will improve theshelf-scape; like Diogenes the hydrangeamust have its tub. Put him in the groundand at once he grows woody and branchy[184]and leafy, imagining perhaps that he is intendedto become a shrub. Thus he can beseen to profit by his limitations—of howmany more of us may this be said! Thelobelia—a garden should always be providedwith plenty of lobelia, to give it hope—isflushing into the thick young leaf witha twinkle here and there to show what itcould do if the rain would stop for just tenminutes; and the salvia is presently blue,though sparingly, as is its nature. Thefuchsias care nothing for the rain and arefull of flounces purple and pink; but nobodytakes it quite like the begonias, who situp unblinking crimson and brick-dust andmother-of-pearl, with their gay yellow heartsin their splendid broad petals, saying plainly“We like this.” And dahlias everywhere,single and double, opening a cheerful eyeupon a very wet world. The dahlia tookpossession of Simla—I have looked it up—thesame year the Government of Indiadid, and it has made itself equally at home.It grows profusely not only in our bits ofgarden but everywhere along the khud-sides[185]that border the public highways. It mixesitself up with Finance and Foreign Relations;it nods under the Telegraph Officeand sways about the Military Department.It does as it pleases, no one attempts togovern it; it paints our little mountaintown with the colours of fantasy and offreedom.

Sunflowers and nasturtiums take as kindlyto bureaucratic conditions. We considerthem fellows of the baser sort and plantthem all behind, the sunflower tall along thelattice between us and the road above, thenasturtiums scrambling and blazing downthe khud-side beneath. The nasturtiumsmake a mere cloth of gold, there is not muchentertainment to be got out of them; buton heavily pouring days when I have betakenmyself to the attic-window level withthem, I have found good company in thesunflowers. Thoughtfully considered, thesunflower has no features to speak of; aneye, and you have mentioned them all, yetmany comedians might envy that furnishing.His personality is evasive; I have idly tried[186]to draw him, and have reproduced a sunflowerbut no gentleman. It lies in a nuanceof light across that expressive round, whichmay say anything, or merely stare. Onelooks intelligently to the west, another hopefullyto the east. Two little ones cower together;another glances confidently up at itstall mother, another folds its leaves underits chin and considers the whole question oflife with philosophy. On a particularly wetday I find a note to the effect that a smallsunflower called across to me, “I am justout this morning and it’s pouring. A nicelook-out, but I’ll try to bear up.” Thatwas the day on which I distinctly saw asunflower shut its eye.

With Tiglath-Pileser everything is secondaryat present to the state of the drainsand the kitchen roof. The drains are openchannels down the khud-side, the kitchenroof is of tin, and when it leaks enough toput the fire out the cook comes and complains.He is a Moog cook, which meansthat he prefers to avoid the disagreeable, sohe waits until it is actually out before he[187]says anything. When, between showers, wewalk abroad upon the shelf my footstepsnaturally tend to the border where the wildpuce-coloured Michaelmas daisies are thickeningamong the goldenrod, and his wouldtake the straightest direction to the plumberand the coolies who are making another stoneditch for him. To me there is no joy in repairinga kitchen roof, nor can I ever decidewhether it should be tarred or painted, whileto Tiglath-Pileser the union of Michaelmasdaisies and goldenrod, though pleasing, isa matter of trivial importance. So we haveagreed upon the principle of a fair partitionof interest. He comes and assumes moderateenthusiasm before my hedge of purpleand yellow; I go and pronounce finally thatnothing could be uglier than either paint ortar for the kitchen roof. By such smallcompromises as these people may holdeach other in the highest estimation foryears.

The consideration of the kitchen roofreminds me of poor Delia, from whom Ihad a letter this morning. She has rejoined[188]her husband in a frontier outpost, wherethe Department of Military Works hadsomewhat neglected their quarters. Theirposition—that of Captain and Mrs. Delia—inthis weather is trying to a degree. Ina particularly heavy storm recently the raincame in upon them in such floods that theywere obliged to take refuge under the table.Imagine the knock of a stranger at the gateunder such circ*mstances! It was betterthan that—it was the knock of a wayfaringSapper come to inspect the bungalow.How great must Delia’s joy have been inmaking him comfortable under the table!And there they sat, all three, for fifteenmortal hours, subsisting, for the cook-housewas carried away, upon ginger-nuts andchocolates and a bottle of anchovies. Themore remote service of Her Majesty ourQueen-Empress involves some curious situations.The Sapper, Delia writes, wentforth no longer a stranger; fifteen hoursspent together under a table would naturallymake a bond for life. One might also trustDelia, whose mission is everywhere to strike[189]a note of gaiety and make glad the heart ofman, to give the circ*mstance a charactersufficiently memorable. Almost, if fourwould not have been a crowd, I could havewished myself there too, under the table.

I  HAVE heard crying in the nursery;it is the most babyish and plaintiverepetition of the old birds’ note, butit grows daily stronger, more importunate.The parent birds utter six notes,dwelling on the fourth in long musicalappeal, the babies have learned only thefourth, the one that really tells when youare hungry; it is a little pipe, ridiculous totears. The pretty little warbler pursues hisgambols more energetically than ever beforethe door of our Eastern bungalow now, hiswife comes with him and they are morepunctual than we are at meals, always in theverandah, on the impatient hop, for breakfastand lunch and tea, though dinner-timefinds them reluctantly in bed. I will go sofar as to say that if I am late in the morningthe father bird comes to my window andasks whether I am aware that I am keeping[191]two families waiting—if that is not his ideawhy does he so markedly whistle there?Further I expect to be believed when I saythat I whistle him my apologies and hereplies, and we frequently have quite longconversations through the window before Iactually appear. They are such a youngcouple and so absorbed in their domesticaffairs that we take a great interest in them.It is a delight to find out a bird’s doingsand plans, and his nest is the only clue. Atother times how private they are, the birds!We know that they are about, and that isall.

One real service I have been able to renderthe robins—in throwing stones at thecrows. The crow has a sleek and clericalexterior, but inside he is as black-hearted avillain as wears feathers. He is a killer andeater of other people’s offspring. Early inthe season he marks the nest, but eggs arenot good enough for him, he waits untilhatching time is well over and then descendsupon it with his great sharp jaws ravagingand devouring. The other day a young[192]bird took refuge from a crow in my bath-room.It was huddled up in a corner and Ithought it a rat, but closer approach revealedit a baby mina, and through the open door Isaw the enemy’s impudent black head peeringin. He sailed away with imprecations on hisbeak and the mina was restored to its family;Atma fortunately knew where they lived.Two crows have marked our robins for theirnext dinner, and I am much interrupted bythe necessity for disappointing them. Imust say one is not disposed by such a circ*mstanceas a nest to an over-confidentbelief in those disguising arrangements ofnature that are so much vaunted in booksof popular science. What could betray anestful to the marauder more quickly thanthis perpetual treble chorus? Nothing, Iam sure, unless the valiant declamation of itspapa, who sometimes takes an exposed perchand tells the world exactly what he would doto a crow, if he could only catch him. Whyare not young birds taught the wisdom ofsilence and old ones the folly of vaunting?Because birds and lizards and insects and[193]things are not taught half as much as weimagine, and as to the protective colour of arobin I believe it only happens to be brown.In this Thisbe agrees with me; the amountof popular science which is not in Thisbe’spossession would make many a humble homehappy. The small events of a garden, as Imust apologize for pointing out once more,become important to any one who lies all day,warm or cold, awake or sleepy there, and Iwent in to tea lately bursting with the informationthat the tit* had come. “The Titts,”said Thisbe meditatively. “Did we knowthem last year?” “I rather think we did,”I replied, “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Titt. Isaw them this morning, but they didn’t leavecards.” At which I was obliged to dodge asuddenly illumined, perfectly undeservedsofa-cushion.

The garden is full of birds just now; theyare for ever wanting to make new introductions,it is almost impossible to pursue thesimplest train of thought. None of themare very constant except the robins and thewoodpeckers and a pair of minas that have[194]built in a disused chimney and squeal defianceat the crows all day long from theeavestrough,—no crow was ever yet boldenough to go down a chimney after his prey.The rest come and go, I never know whatthey are at, or even, to tell the truth, how toaddress them. They appear suddenly outof nowhere and fly in companies from treeto tree, or settle down to an industrious mealall together under the rose-bushes, as if bycommon consent they had decided to picnicthere; perhaps I shall not see them again fortwo or three days. Among the branchesthey take one direction, the tiny tree-climberswith yellow-green breasts are like youngleaves flying. They add to life a charmingnote of the unexpected, these sudden flightsof little birds; I wish I knew them to speakto....

It must be explained that this is the followingday, and that an event of a verydisturbing kind has taken place in the meantime. The rain was coming down in sheetsthis morning as Tiglath-Pileser and I stoodby the window after breakfast. From the[195]nest in the banksia came the most keen andmournful protest. For an instant it wouldstop when the old birds came and filled thelittle throats; then the plaint against lifeand circ*mstances, quite heartbreaking inaccents so youthful, would begin again, andgo on until it seemed to us too grievousto be borne. Heavily and heavily fell therain. “I wonder the little beasts aren’tdrowned out,” said Tiglath-Pileser. Theclose-cut roof of the banksia seemed a verypoor protection to persons standing in thehouse.

“Couldn’t we do something?” I suggested“An umbrella?” but Tiglath-Pileserthought an umbrella would be too difficultto fix. He went away, however, and outof his own wisdom and understanding heproduced a mackintosh. This with a walking-stickand infinite pains and precautionshe spread over the banksia, the rain descendingupon his devoted head, I admonishingfrom the window. The crying ceasedinstantly, and though we waited for someminutes it did not recommence. Evidently[196]the little things were more comfortable,perhaps they had gone to sleep. “That,”said I to Tiglath-Pileser as he turned away,“was a real kindness.”

Half an hour later I was still at the window.No sound from the nest. At a littledistance the mother bird hopped aboutanxiously, something evidently on her mind.I watched her for a long time and she didnot go up to the nest. “The old birds,”thought I, “are afraid of the mackintosh.It is better to drown than to starve,” andI picked my way out among the puddleswith a chair in one hand and an umbrellain the other and managed to get the thingoff. And there at the foot of the trellis sata little helpless bunch of feathers with roundbright eyes and a heart beating inside,—ababy robin tumbled out.

I picked the adventurer up and took himinto the house. He regarded me withoutdistrust, comfortable in the warmth of myhand, but when I put him down he sent outno uncertain sound to say that he was unfriended.I have often tried to feed fledgelings,[197]it is an impossible charge; and myadvice as to this one was to put him on thewindow-ledge where his mother might do it.There he sat up with his back to the worldand, looking at me with confidence, unexpectedlyopened wide his preposterous futileyellow beak. It was as if a gnome had suddenlyspoken—before the gaping demandI was helpless, full of consternation. “Youpathetic little idiot,” I reflected aloud, “whatcan I do for you!” and of course by thetime bread and water arrived the beak washermetically sealed, as usual. I sat downwith confidence, however, to await events,and presently the small brown mother, sayingall sorts of things in an undertone, cameslipping in and out among the rose-stemsbelow; and with much relief I saw the wandererdrop over the sill and join her. Theymade off together very quietly, and againI watched, uneasily, the nest. No sound,no parent birds, and as time went on stillsilence and abandonment. I decided thatthe young ones had been drowned or chilledto death before we thought of protecting[198]them, that the friendly mackintosh had cometoo late; and in some depression I went outto see. By standing on a chair I could justreach, and thrusting my hand through thewet leaves I felt for the little corpses. Thenest was empty!

It is a novel and rather a laughable sensationto be taken in—completely sold—bya bird. How she managed it I cannotimagine, for it all happened under my eyesand I saw nothing, but one by one she musthave enticed her family out into a mostunattractive world some days before theirtime, alarmed at the shrouding mackintosh.The last had got only as far as the foot ofthe trellis when I found it. She had out-wittedProvidence. I sent for Atma andtogether we prowled and searched about thegarden in the lessening rain. Presently hepaused beside the closest tangles of thepotato-creeper, “Chupsie!”[3] said he—theword was half a whisper, half a soft whistle—andbent down. I looked too, and there[199]they sat in a row, three soft, surprised,obedient little feather-balls, well hidden, andwaiting no doubt to see what in this astonishingwilderness would happen next. Igot back to the window in time to receivethe parent birds’ opinion of me, full-throated,unabridged. They poured it outfrom perches commanding the banksia, fromwhich they could see the Thing removedand their premature flitting quite foolish andfutile. Plainly they connected me with thehorrid dream that for an hour had cloakedall their horizon, and it was a murderousscolding. Ten days of steady rain and thenthis misfortune! Every other bird wassilent in shelter, only these two pouredforth their tale of dolorous injustice.What weather to be obliged to fledge in—prettyaccommodation for a young familyin a potato-creeper! Was I not aware thatthey had been brought up in the rainsthemselves, hatched exactly this time lastyear? Could I not conceive that theymight be able to mind their own business?“When you have quite finished,”[200]I whistled humbly, “I’ll explain,” but Icouldn’t get a word in, as the saying is,edgeways, and finally I fled, leaving themstill expressing their opinion of well-intentionedpeople.

WE have arrived at September andthe rains are “breaking.” Fortwo months and a half theyhave trampled upon us steadily,armies on the march; now they come in scatteredbattalions and make off as if pursued.The attack, too, is as erratic; it will hammerhard upon the kitchen while not a drop fallson the verandah, or a great slant will sweepdown the nearest valley while we look on indry security from the shelf. Here in thegarden a wall of mist will often surround me,with the sun shining brightly inside; it turnsthe shelf into a room, and makes one thinkof the impalpable barrier of one’s environment,possible to break in any direction butnever broken, always there, the bound ofone’s horizon and the limit of one’s activities.I wonder if Tiglath-Pileser will callthat far-fetched.

[202]Thin, ragged, white clouds sail over therose-bushes, just low enough to touch thefresh red shoots, which are now as lovely tolook at, all in new curling leaf, as ever theycan be in full rose time. That of course iswritten when there are no roses here to contradictme. There is one red-brown tonethat one never sees except on a new leafingrose-bush and in the eyes of some animals,and there is a purple which is mixed nowhereelse at all. And it all shines—how itshines!—under the soft cloud fringes, andwhen by accident a full-hearted deep-pinkrose comes and sits alone among these youngtwigs and sprays the sight gives that strangeache of pleasure that hints how difficult perpetualecstasy would be to bear. The rose-bedsleeps in the rains, but it sleeps with oneeye open; I seldom look in vain for at leastone flower. Now it is full of buds; the roseof yesterday is only waiting for to-morrow.Maréchal Niels have waited in a different way;they have not put out new roses but they haveclung obstinately to the old ones. “At oncethe silken tassel of my purse tear, and its[203]treasure on the garden throw” is no part ofthe Maréchal Niels’ philosophy. It hangsa heavy head and clings to every petal, reluctantlygiving up day by day a moiety of itssweetness and lasting so unwarrantably longthat in sheer indignation I frequently cut offits head. The garden rejoices wildly now,all the rains-flowers are gayer than ever,and daily confess to the sun that they neverreally pretended to do without him. A newlease of vitality has sprung up everywhere;even the poor sticks that Atma has proppedup the dahlias with, have forgotten that theyhave been cut off untimely and are trying tobud. There is sadness in this and I will notconsider it.

The crows are moved to speak in all sortsof strange languages, including a good dealof English. One took his seat on thevery swaying top of a deodar this morningand distinctly ejacul*ted “Oh Bother!Oh Bother! Oh Bother!” with a gutturalthroaty emphasis that excited me at last toan unfriendly stone; whereat he went frombad to worse and cursed me. The crow[204]that superintends the East is a strange bird,never happy, seldom in a good humour.He declaims, he soliloquizes, he frequentlyflies off and says “I’ll enquire;” but hisprincipal note is that of simple derision andhe plainly finds humbug in everything. Hehas no period of tender innocence; somecrows are older than others but nobody hasever seen a young crow. There is nothinglike him in England; the rooks make asmuch noise perhaps, but only for a littlewhile in the evening; the crow’s commentupon life is perpetual. Remote, across avalley, it is a kind of fantastic chorus to thereckless course of men; overhead it is acriticism of the most impertinent and espionagewithout warrant. These, of course, areonly country crows; in the cities, like otherbad characters, they take greater liberties, becomingmore objectionable by sophistication.

The butterflies have come back as if byappointment; one big blue and black fellowis carrying on a violent flirtation with afuchsia under my very nose. She hasn’tmuch honey, and he, according to Tiglath-Pileser[205] has hardly anything to extract it with.I fear, in the cynicism of our contemporaryGauls, il perd terriblement son temps, but itseems to amuse them both, and why commentmore severely upon the charming fooling ofaffinities? The butterflies alight so differentlynow upon the gravel drive, whichis still glistening wet; they pause thereon lightest tiptoe with waving wings; abutterfly hates cold feet. The bees are asbusy and as cheery as ever; I have wastedthe last ten minutes in watching a bumblebee,with the most persuasive hum, suckingthe last of their sweetness out of the corn-bottles.The bee clings and the flowerdrops over; the old pretty garden idyllnever loses its power to please. Dear me,if it would always rain and be unattractiveI might get something done; as it is....That was rather a sharp shower, and Inoticed that the hawk-moth courting thesalvias, braved it through. One wouldhave thought that the big drops would havereduced him to a tiny ball of wet fluff intwo minutes, but he has gone on darting[206]from flower to flower quite indifferent. Lastnight a hawk-moth dined with us, on thedahlias in the middle of the table. Hethought it a charming sunny day under thelamps, and enjoyed himself enormously,only leaving with the ladies as he objectedto tobacco. We should be delighted to seehim again.

A morning ride, I am glad to say, is notconsidered an adventure into the world, andmorning rides are again possible withoutthe risk of a drenching. I have left Patand Arabi in the seclusion of their stables allthis time, but for no fault, as we should sayif we were selling them. Horses, I fear Iam of those who fondly think, were createdfirst in a mood of pure pleasure, and a carefulProvidence then made men to look afterthem. I should not like to tell Thisbethis; she takes the orthodox view about thesuccession of beasts and it might make herconsider one unsound; but I do not mindsaying it in print where it is likely to doless harm. Besides, my friend the BengalLancer entirely agrees with me, and that[207]is what one might call a professional opinion.Pat and Arabi came walking in on the shelfone spring morning a year and a half ago,very meek and sorry for themselves, havingclimbed up every one of fifty-eight milesand seven thousand feet on very little, probably,but hay. They came out of a kicking,squealing herd in the Rawalpindi fair, whereTiglath-Pileser bought them on a day withtheir full respective equipment of hill-ropes,a ragged blanket, a tin bucket and a valetfor less than twenty pounds apiece. Theprice seems low when you consider thatArabi’s papa was a Persian of pedigreeand Pat’s an English thoroughbred. Itis due to certain liberal provisions of anall-wise Government which nobody iscompelled to discuss except the officials ofthe Remount Department. It will beenough to say that we do not boast of theirconnections on the maternal side, and painfullytry to subdue all characteristics whichseem to hark back that way. Their siringis by dirty scrip established, but in thiscountry it is a wise foal that knows his[208]own mother. Arabi has a pink streak onhis nose which was plainly one of hismother’s charms, but this, as I cannot seeit when I am on his back, troubles me lessthan his four white stockings and hoofs tomatch, which were also bequeathed to himby her. But his glossy coat and the archof his neck and his paces he inherits from hismore distinguished parent, after whom also wehave had the weakness to name him. I don’tlike to think of Arabi’s tie with the country;she probably went in an ekka[4] with a stringof blue beads across her forehead; but Pat’smother’s family was pure tribal Waziri,which means that with the manners andmake of your English sire you come intothe world with the wiry alertness your maternalgrandfather learned in getting roundlofty mountain corners in a hurry, and away of lifting your feet in trotting overstony country that is pretty to see, anda pride in your dark grey coat and ironmuscles that there is no need to concealeither. Of course you may also inherit the[209]Waziri irritability of temperament. Pat, ina moment of annoyance, one day early lastseason, cow-kicked the Head of the ArmyVeterinary Department, but that was beforehe had been long enough in Simla to knowwho people were. He would not dream ofdoing such a thing now; at least he mightdream of it, but that is all. He is a nobleanimal and he has his ambitions. I sometimesthink they are directed against thepair of fat Australian cobs that draw thecarriage of the Commander-in-Chief. Wazirisof all classes dislike the Commander-in-Chief;and Pat may very well have a bloodfeud on his hoofs to avenge.

Pat is the prouder, the more daring animalof the two; Arabi merely champs andpretends to bite his groom to show that hetoo is of noble blood. Pat will take thelead past a perambulator any day and willonly slightly consider a length of unexpecteddrain pipe along the road. But even Pathas his objects of suspicion, and chief amongthem is a man, any man on foot in blackclothes. At such a person he will always[210]shy violently. This is a cause of greatinconvenience and embarrassment to us.There is one perfectly inoffensive gentleman,rather stout, who beams upon theworld through his spectacles with unvaryingamiability, whose perfectly respectable occupationno doubt compels him to wearblack, and whom it is our misfortune constantlyto meet. Neither soft words norsmiting will induce Pat to pass this personwithout a wild affrighted curve away fromhim. The first time he smiled; the secondtime he looked mildly surprised; the thirdtime he mantled with indignation, and nowhe always mantles. It has gone, I assureyou, quite beyond a joke. And we, whatcan we do? You cannot apologize for athing like that. One’s usual course when apony shies is to take him up to the objectand let him sniff it so that he will knowbetter the next time, but how ask an elderly,self-respecting gentleman to allow himself tobe sniffed in that way? This morning Isaw the object coming, and had an inspiration.“Let us turn round,” said I to Tiglath-Pileser,[211]“and let him pass us.” So weturned and waited, with the air of expectingsome one from the opposite direction. Theman in black came nervously on and Tiglath-Pileserlaid a reassuring hand on Pat’sneck. Would you believe it, Pat stood likean angel, and the man in black shied! Shiedbadly. And went on looking more furiousthan ever. We daily expect to have somekind of writ served on us, and do not atall know what steps we should take.

The ponies went excitedly this morning,as they always do after a storm like the onewe had last night. “Ridiculous animal,”said I to Arabi as he paused to look askanceat a small boulder that had slipped downthe khud. “This is the same old road youtravelled many yesterdays and will travelmany to-morrows. Foolish beast, of whatare you afraid?” Tiglath-Pileser reprovedme. “To us,” said he, “it is the same oldroad, but to a really observant person likeArabi it presents fifty significant changes.He in his stable listened to the rain lastnight with emotions quite different from[212]yours in your bed. To him it meant thatthe young grass was everywhere springingand the turf everywhere softening under foot,and no doubt he reflected once more uponthe insoluble problem presented by heel-ropesand your meals in a trough. Thismorning his experienced eye discovers all heexpected and more,—puddles, channels,and other suspicious circ*mstances. Thatstone was not there yesterday, no doubt awild beast had unearthed it and was sittingbehind it as we passed, waiting for just sucha breakfast as Arabi knows he comprises.That the wild beast didn’t happen to bethere on this occasion was great luck forArabi and you can see he is relieved.”

“Well,” said I, unsympathetic, “I thinka good deal of it is nonsense all the same,”and as we approached the next lurking lionI gave Arabi a sound cuff that drew off hisattention and he cantered past it without aword.

The familiar road wound round our ownhill, the Roy-Regent’s hill crowned with hiscastle, and Summer Hill. It would be[213]entertaining to be as observant as Arabi andfind wonders round every curve; we comefar short of that and sometimes confess thegreat book of nature before us a little dull forlack of the writing of man. It is possiblethat mountains may suggest mere altitude,especially mountains like the Himalayas,wall behind wall, waves transfixed in longunbroken lines against the sky; one cannotalways feel a passion of admiration for merematter at an inconvenient level. But theirnew mood of the rains makes them beautiful,almost interesting. The mist risesamong them and turns them cleverly intothe peaks and masses they ought to be, anda slope flashes in the brilliant sun and aravine sinks in the purple shade, and thebarest shoulder is cloaked in green velvet.“They would give a good deal to see thatfrom the Row,” I say boastfully, and Tiglath-Pileserresponds “Yes indeed,” and weboth look at it as if we were the proprietors,momentarily almost inclined to admit it as acompensation.

The jungle triumphs in the rains; it[214]overwhelms the place. Even on the shelf it ishard enough to cope with, creeping up, lickingand lipping the garden through the paling;but out upon the public khud-sides it is uncheckedand insatiable. We hate the jungle;it is so patient and designing and unremitting,so much stronger than we are. Suchconstant war we have to make upon itmerely to prevent it from swallowing usalive. It will plant a toadstool in yourbedroom and a tree in your roof; it shrinksfrom nothing. That is why we hear newcomersfrom tidy England in rapture uponthe glorious freedom of the wilderness withgrim displeasure; and point to the crookedsquares of our pathetic little estates, painfullyredeemed and set smugly about withposies, saying “Admire that!” And it isso demoralizing, the jungle. The oak, forinstance, at home, is a venerable person weall respect and some of us used to worship.Here he is a disreputable old Bacchus withan untrimmed beard and ferns sticking to hisbranches. Certain English flowers even, alasthat I should say it! have left the paths of[215]propriety and taken permanently to unregulatedliving. The dahlia has never repented,and the tiger-lilies brazen it out,but the little blue face of a convolvulus Imet this morning, strayed away in the companyof a snake-plant and a young rhododendron,said with wistful plainness, “I wasa virtuous flower once!”

Everything is still very damp, and in theshade very chill, and we were glad enoughto escape the cloud that suddenly soberedthe highway just as we turned in upon theshelf. A figure moved along the road inthe greyness, came closer, making automaticmovements of head and hands, passedus—a coolie eating a cucumber. It was along and thick cucumber, and he was eatingthe rind and the seeds, everything. Itseemed a cold, unsuitable, injudicious thingfor even a coolie to eat in the rain. Wehoped it was vicious indulgence, but wefeared it was his breakfast.

WE have entered upon the periodof our great glory and content;it is second summer inthese hills, with just a crisphint of autumn coming. There is nothingleft of the rains but their benediction; allday long the sun draws the scent out of thedeodars and makes false promises to thegarden, where they believe it is spring.The field-daisies and the hollyhocks andthe mignonette are all in second bloom andthe broom down the khud has kindled upagain. The person who is really puzzledis the lilac. We have a lilac bush. I assureyou it is not everybody who can sayso in the town of Simla; the lilac is mostcapricious about where she will stay andwhere she won’t stay. We have only one;all her children either die young or growup dwarfs. However, after blooming inthe most delicious and heartbreaking manner[217]in April, fainting through June andgoing quite distracted in the rains, the lilacnow finds new sap in her veins and thetemptation assails her to flower regardlessof the calendar. Yet she doesn’t, poor dear,quite know how; something is lacking to theconsummation of April, and the fictitious joyshe grasps at comes out in ragged littlebunches that stick straight up at the end ofthe wood of the topmost branches. Neverthelessit is pure lilac, enough for a button-hole,and matter to boast of, lilac in October.

For all these reasons I was perfectly happythis morning until twenty minutes past teno’clock. Atma and I had been transplantingsome cactus dahlias to fill up an emptyplace. It is a liberty I wouldn’t have takenat this time of year, but Atma says that hecan deceive the dahlias. “By giving muchwater,” he explains, “they will take nonotice,” and he has been craftily settingthem down in little ponds. I had a disputewith him about a plant, which he declaredwas a lily. To settle the matter, assoon as my back was turned, he dug it up,[218]and triumphantly sought me. “Behold,”said he, “it has an onion.” He was distressedto contradict me, but behold it hadan onion. The connection between an onionand a lily was simpler perhaps to Atmathan it would be to many people; but Iconceded it. Then came a pedlar of applesfrom a neighbouring garden. We shallhave apples of our own in time, but ourneighbour down the khud thought of itthree or four years before we did, and thereis no particular reason to wait. Our neighbour’ssturdy retailer squatted discouragedon his haunches before me. His brownmuscles stood out in cords on his arms andlegs, his face was anxious and simple like achild’s. “If your honour will listen,” saidhe, “half over Simla I have carried thisburden of apples, and it is no lighter. Mywords are good and I go always to theverandah, but the sahib-folk will not buy.”

“And is that,” said I, eyeing the fruit,“a strange thing, worthy one?”

He picked up an apple and held it disparagingly,at arm’s-length, in front of him.[219]“Certainly they are going rotten,” said hesimply. “And the more they rot the louderis the anger of the mistress when I carrythem back. Your honour will listen—ifapples rot is it the fault of the servant?No,” he answered himself with solid conviction,“it is the fault of God.”

He sat in the sun content—content tosit and talk of his grievance with his loadon the ground. I smiled at his dilemma,and he smiled back; but gravity quicklyovertook him, it was a serious matter.

“Seven days ago, when they were sound,”he went on, “the gardener himself tookthem and sold many. Now he gives methe command, and because I do not sellthere is talk of a donkey.”

“Truly you are no donkey, worthy one,”said I soothingly. “All the donkeys areemployed by the washermen to carry homethe clothes. You are a large, fine, usefulPahari. What is the price of the apples?Some of them are good.”

“It is true talk that the mistress said tenannas a seer,” he replied eagerly, “but if[220]your honour wishes to pay eight annas Iwill say that your honour, seeing the rottenness,would give no more.”

I would not profit by the rottenness sinceit did not concern me, so he picked out ofhis best for me with exclamations, “Lo, howit is red!” “Listen, this one will be ahoney-wallah!” and almost more polishingthan I could bear. The cloud departed fromhis honest face, it was that I had paid for;and when Tiglath-Pileser passing by saidthat I had been imposed upon I was indignant.He, the master, would not have anapple though they are really very good, andneither do I feel so disposed; they must bemade into a pudding. We talked for a littlewhile of the annoyance of reaching that criticaltime of life when one looks askance ata casual apple. In early youth it is a trifleto be appropriated at any hour; betweenthe ages of ten and fourteen it is preferablethe last thing before going to bed. Afterthat ensues a period of indifference, full ofthe conviction that there are things in theworld more interesting than apples; and[221]by the time one again realizes that there isnothing half so good, circ*mstances havechanged so that it is most difficult to decidewhen to eat them. A raw apple in the Americanfashion before breakfast is admitted bythe mass of mankind to have a too discouragingeffect upon everything else, and allwill grant that it is impossible to do justiceto its flavour, impossible to cope with it inany way, after a meal. It is not elusive—likethe grape or the lychee; it is far toomuch on the spot. There remains the impromptuoccasion, but you have long sincecome to regard with horror anything “betweenmeals.” A day arrives when the factstares you in the face that there is no timeat which to eat an apple. Tiglath-Pileserand I considered it together this morning;but we were philosophic, we didn’t mind,we remembered that up to threescore yearsand ten there would probably always besomebody to bake them for us and werehappy, nevertheless. Then Tryphena cameand stayed an hour, and now I am not sohappy as I was.

[222]I would not dwell upon her, I would passto other themes, but one has a feeling thatTryphena has been too much omitted fromaccounts of our little town. Such chronicleshave been somehow too playful; one wouldthink we did nothing but discover affinitiesand listen to the band and eat expensivethings in tins. One would think life was alljoy and pleasure whereas there are Associationsof every kind. Whatever may havebeen the case in the golden age, or the timeof Lord Lytton, I believe that the greatover-fed conscience of Great Britain nowsends out more Tryphenas every year, andtheir good works have to be seriouslyreckoned with in considering the possibilityof remaining here. We have our traditions,of course, but we are practically compelledto live upon them, and it seems to me thata distant world should hear not only of ourdeclining past but of what we have increasinglyto put up with. I would not haveinvited Tryphena to occupy a chapter, butas she has walked in without this formalityshe might as well stay.

[223]Indeed I would not have invited her.She is the kind of Tryphena that nevercomes to see you unless you are ill. I amnot so agreeable when I am ill—I imaginefew people are—and I prefer visits, at such atime, only from people who are fond of seeingme when I am well. Why in heaven’sname, when you are feverish or aguish orpanting for breath, you should be expectedto accept as a “kindness” a visit from aperson who never thinks of you until youbecome a helpless object to whet her righteousnesson, who comes and inflicts a personalityupon you to which the most robusthealth only enables you to be barely polite,is to me an irritating conundrum. I hadtaken particular pains to be reported toTryphena as entirely convalescent, “quiteout of the doctor’s hands;” I did not wantto be on her parish books. Why should Isuffer to enable her to do her duty? Whyshould she have things put down to hercredit at my expense? This does not seemto me reasonable or proper and I am averseto it. Yet I have told her, such is my hypocrisy,[224]how good it was of her to come, andshe has gone away better pleased with herselfthan ever.

Tryphena’s attitude toward the social bodyby which she is good enough to allow herselfto be surrounded is a mingling of compassionand censure. She is la justicière.She will judge with equity, even with mercy,but she must always judge. She is perpetuallyweighing, measuring, criticising,tolerating, exercising her keen sense of theshortcomings of man in general and womanin particular. She will bring her standardsand set them up by your bedside. Yourscanty stock of force cannot be better usedthan in contemplating and admiring them,and you must recognize how completely sheherself attains them; you have no alternative.If one will for ever strike human balancesone should have a broad fair page todo it on, and Tryphena’s is already over-writtenwith cramped prejudices. It is atriviality, but Tryphena’s gloves always wrinkleat the thumbs.

If she had been a man she would have[225]been a certain kind of clergyman, and if shehad been a clergyman his legs would havegone in gaiters. Indeed, sooner or later shewould probably have added to the name ofTryphenus the glories of an episcopal see. Sheis past mistress of the art of kindly rebuke.But I do not wish to be kindly rebuked.In that respect I am like the Roy-Regent,and all other persons whom Providence hasenabled to do without this attention. Shehas more principles than any one person isentitled to, and she is always putting theminto action before you. I think it is a mistaketo imagine that people care about thenoble reasons that direct one’s doings; if one’sdoings themselves provoke interest it is exceptionalluck. I wish somebody would tellTryphena that principles ought to be hiddenas deep as a conviction of superiority; andsee what would happen. I am sure we werenot born to edify one another.

The deplorable part of it is that Tryphenaleaves one inclined to follow her in the steepand narrow path that leads to self-esteem.I find myself at this moment not only in a[226]bad temper, but in a vein of criticism whichI am inclined to visit upon persons whom Iam usually entirely occupied in admiring.My friend the Bengal Lancer has just riddenby, with his hand on his hip. It has neverstruck me before that to ride with a hand onthe hip is a sign of irredeemable vanity. TheGunner was here to tea yesterday—he of theMountain Battery—and told us stories ofhis mules. I think disparagingly of his mules.That a mule will “chum up to” a pony andkick a donkey, seems this morning an imbecilestatement of an improbable fact, thoughI admit I laughed at the time, it was soBritish. The unpaid Attaché came too.The unpaid Attaché gives one the impressionof never allowing himself to be ascharming as he might be. What foolishfear can justify this reticence? Enthusiasm,we all know, is permitted to the gods and toforeigners only, but even an unpaid Attachécan afford a whole smile.

The worst that can be said of Delia isthat numbers of people whom she doesn’tcare a button about call her a dear. At least[227]that is the worst I can think of. As toThalia, I had a note from her yesterday inwhich she spelled my name wrong. This aftertwo years of notes. It may have been anaccident; but much as I love Thalia I amdisposed—this morning—to think that thereis somewhere in her a defect obscure, elementary,which matches this. What is theworst they know of me? I have not theleast idea, but I am prepared—this morning—tohope it is something rather bad.

The fact is that here in our remote andarbitrary and limited conditions we are ratherlike a colony in a lighthouse; we havenothing but ourselves and each other, andwe grow overwrought, over-sensitive to thepersonal impression. I suppose that is whathas produced, has at least aggravated, caseslike Tryphena’s. It is a thing to be onone’s guard against. I quite see that if myown symptoms increase I shall shortly arriveat the point of being unable to endure thesight of many persons superior to myself;which is illogical and ridiculous.

I  WAS congratulating the hydrangeathis morning on its delightful attitudetoward life. This is no virtue of thehydrangea’s; it is a thing conferred,a mere capacity, but how enviable! Allthrough its youth and proper blossomingtime, which is the rains, it has the pink-and-whiteprettiness that belongs to that period.When it is over, instead of acknowledgingmiddle age by any form of frumpishnessthe hydrangea grows delicately green again;it retires agreeably, indistinguishably intoleaves, a most artistic pose. That, too,passes in these sharp days when the sun isonly gold that glitters, and the hydrangea,taking its unerring tone from the season,turns a kind of purplish rose, and still neverdrops a petal, never turns a hair. In the endthe hydrangea will be able to say with truththat it has not died without having lived.

[229]Sooner or later I might perhaps have seenthat for myself, but it was Cousin Christinawho pointed it out to me. It is one of thesubtler and more gratifying forms of selfishnessto ask persons of taste to help you toenjoy your garden; and at no one’s expensedo I indulge in this oftener than at CousinChristina’s. She spends more time with mehere under the pencil-cedar than any one elsedoes, partly because I think she likes me alittle and the garden a great deal, and partlybecause she has fallen, recently, upon veryidle circ*mstances.

We always thought, she and I, that weshould more or less take to one another.Mutual friends told us so, and there wasevidence to support the statement. Weapproved what they carried back and forthbetween us of our respective habits andopinions; and once I saw a scrap of herinteresting handwriting conveying a viewin terms very net. Constantly we weremade to feel that upon the basis of humanintercourse—the delicate terms of whichwho can quite expose?—we had things to[230]give each other, and constantly we said withintention, “Next summer I must really manageto meet her.” That is all I knew ofCousin Christina, except that life had offeredher, somehow, less than she had a title to,and that she spent a great deal of time inher garden.

And then—“on sait trop de cela, queles heures sont comptées à l’homme qui doitmourir, et on agit comme si le trésor de cesheures était inépuisable, l’occasion indéfinimentrenouvable et nos amis éternels.”[5]Cousin Christina died last year, and we hadnever met.

It will be judged how much I value hervisits now, now that she has so far to come,and her efforts to make me understand; wewho remain are so deaf. There were manypoints at which the world irritated her whileshe was conditioned in it; and I think theremoteness of this place appeals to her inher freedom; she is pleased in its great linesand vast spaces which yet hold just thetouch of human enterprise and affection[231]which she too thought essential, here in mygarden. She seems, at all events, to belongto the vague, as if she loved it, and of courseI can never lay my hand on her.

She is devoted to the garden, constantlyshe trails about it, having nothing to say tome, with precisely that attitude toward arose and that hand under a top-heavy asterwhich separates the true lover from the mereadmirer. Dahlias swing free as she passes,and leaves that keep the sun off the convolvulusesget out of their way. It is not thewind, it is Cousin Christina. She is moreintimate with the flowers than I; almostinvariably, when I show her anything newin bloom she informs me “I saw that yesterday.”She does not seem to think it a libertyto see another person’s flowers beforethe person herself. I criticise her there.

I cannot put down what she says in theform of dialogue, because, although the meaningis plain, it seems to take some other.She herself is amused at the idea of confiningher within quotation marks. It comesto this that I can give you only an essence,[232]an extract, of what she conveys. Howblundering and explosive, after CousinChristina’s way, are the great words ofother people! I like sleeping in the atticbecause the sun climbing up behind theshoulder of Jakko, comes in there first.This morning, looking up through thelittle high window in the wall I saw ahawk sailing with broad sunlight onhis wings, though none had reached thewindow yet, and the attic was still grey andwaiting. I have seen it all day, the hawkup there with his wings gleaming, but it wasCousin Christina who suggested that perhapsafter all it was only necessary to risehigh enough to meet the light. A moredefinite showing, it appears, was what shelacked most in life. Among a bewilderingworldful of facts, appearances and incidents,vague, she complains, is the short existence,and untrustworthy the interests which areour only guides to spend it to the bestaccount. She seems grieved now to discoverhow much more there was and howmuch better worth doing. Upon one thing[233]only I feel that she congratulates herself.Among our poor chances there is one whichis supreme, and she had it. Within herradius she saw. The mirror was hers whichprints the lovely suggestion of things, and Ihave learned from her and from the gardenthat there is no finer or more delicate ormore charming occupation for a person ofleisure than to sit and polish her mirror.

She did not live as long as I wish to do,and I think at the time she would havebeen glad to stay. Nevertheless, she lookswith no great encouragement upon theefforts after completer health which I hopeI have not too continuously referred to inthese chapters. I gather from her that ifyou are asked to an entertainment, you donot reproach your host that it is so soonover, nor are you supposed to resent otherpeople getting more extended invitations.The lights and the music please you, butat the end you never hesitate to step outsideagain into the dark. Perhaps we areall here quite as long as we are wanted.Life is very hospitable, but she cannot put[234]on every card “1 to 70 years.” I gatherthat these are Cousin Christina’s views;and I reply that it is easy to be wise afterthe event, which I am nevertheless stillinclined to postpone.

On days when life is a pure pleasure sheis not much with me, but on days when itis a mere duty—she knew many of thoseherself, poor dear—I can always dependupon her. It was she who lifted her long-handledglasses and looked at Thisbe, whoone morning came and stood in the sunbetween us, and quoted,—

which exactly prints Thisbe, and she whodescribed Lutetia as soothing but uninteresting,like a patent food—her invalid’s fanciesseem to cling to her. Cousin Christina is alittle difficult to please; she dismissed thefresh-coloured, vigorous Alexandra veryshortly as a nice thing growing in a garden,and when I hinted that Alexandra heldviews of her own she admitted that the[235]creature had a strong scent. She permitsherself these vagaries, these liberties withmy acquaintances, the majority of whomshe finds, I fear, a trifle limited. And shehas a courage of expression which belongs, Iam sure, only to the disembodied. Nothingrouses her to more impatience than the expression“quite a character.” Is it notdeplorable and distressing, she demands,that we are not all characters? She herselfwas very much of a character, one couldimagine soft, stupid, little women saying so,at meetings to dress dolls for zenanas, andhow it would irritate her when the mildimputation was brought home to her. Sheis delightful to take one’s indignations to;she underlines every word, though she pretendsa tolerance for the unintelligent whichI am sure she does not feel. “Consider,”I almost heard her say, “if we clever onesof the world were not so few, how miserablethe stupid ones would be! Secure in theirgrunting majority they let us smite themand turn the other cheek, but if they had togrunt solitarily!” She sometimes forgets,[236]like that, that she is gone, is not. Howsharp must have been the individuality thatrefuses so obstinately to blend with the universalcurrent!

In the simple mosaic here, put togetherat odd times, piece by piece rubbed up as itcame and set in its place, many of the fragmentsare here. I know this because theyare not things that would naturally occur tome, whereas they correspond exactly withthe sentiments I know she used to hold. Ihave nevertheless written them out withoutscruple because she seems in a way to havegiven them to me.

My possession in her is uncertain afterall, hardly greater, I suppose, than a kindof constructive regret. Yet somehow Iimagine it is more tangible than hers in theasters and the carnations. Her impressionswere always strong and her affections alwaysloyal; but divested, denuded as she is, Ifancy it must be only the memory thatflowers are beautiful that brings her here,poor ghost.

IT is sharp on these mountains now,keen, glorious weather. In the houseThisbe cowers over a fire from morningto night. I call it abject; she retortsthat no English winter has ever produced inher so much goose-flesh, and that she cameto India to be warm. Even I must bend toacknowledge the virtues of a hot-water bottle,and I have abandoned the pencil-cedar;the deck chair now chases the sun. Everyhour we shift farther and farther to thewest, until at about four o’clock he dips behindthe castle of the Princess, and then wegrow very grey and melancholy on the shelf.It is, after all, the great sun of India; if itfalls steadily upon your feet it will slowlywarm them through the shivering air; butnothing, not even a dahlia, must come betweenyou and it. Even a dahlia makes adifference. The glare upon this page is[238]particularly unpleasant, but I have permanentlyclosed my parasol; the double sensationof icy fingers and toasting feet wasworse. It is more than I bargained for, aweek, as a matter of fact, beyond my contracttime; and only the fear of taking coldthere keeps me from going into the house.

Whatever forebodings the garden feels itputs a brave front upon the matter. It issmart with zinnias now; in ranks theystand, like soldiers, always at attention. Ihave no patience with people who are tooæsthetic for zinnias, who complain of theirstiffness and their commonness and whatnot. I think the zinnia a particularly delightfulcreature, full of courage and characterand cheerful confidence, and here wherewe have to make such a fight for a bit ofcolour against the void it is invaluable. Itmay not be exactly a lovable flower, butwhat of that? Many of us must be contentto be estimable. There is even joy in azinnia. From where I sit I look through afringe of them along the paling where theyalmost glitter in the sun. Beyond are a few[239]dark deodar tops and an oak from which thelast yellow leaves are fluttering, fluttering,and behind the tracery of this the blue skybending to the still sharp snowy ranges. Ifyou shut your eyes and succeed in seeingthat, you may almost forget that I am inIndia and you somewhere else; we are both,really, very near Thibet and not far, Iimagine, from heaven.

Nor would anybody, I am sure, everthink of India and chrysanthemums together.Yet the shelf is glorious withchrysanthemums, purple and bronze andgold and white. My gardening now takesthe form of kind attentions to the chrysanthemums.Atma will tie them up withwhat I can only call swaddling strings, roundtheir necks or their waists or anywhere,without the slightest regard for their comfort.Whereas if there is one thing achrysanthemum pleads for, it is freedom toexercise its own eccentric discretion withregard to pose. There is no refreshmentto exile like the cold sharp fragrance ofchrysanthemums, especially white ones. It[240]brings back, straight back, the glisteningpavement of Kensington High Street on awet November night and the dear densesmell of London and a sense of the delightthat can be bought for sixpence there.Delight should be cheap but not too cheap.I am thankful sometimes for the limitationsof our shelf and the efforts we must make tokeep it pretty, and the fact that we have toconsider whether leaf-mould is not ratherdear at fourpence a basket. It must bedifficult to keep in relation with a wholemountain-side, which is the estate of somepeople, or with six thousand rupees a month,which is the pay of a Member of Council.I should lease most of the mountain-side, Ithink, and put the rupees in bags and lockthem up in a vault, just anyhow, as the rajahsdo. To be aware that you had a vault fullof rupees in bags would remove every carefrom life, but not to be obliged to knowexactly how many bags there were would fillit with peace and ecstasy. There is solidcomfort in a bag of rupees—I have possessed,at times, a little one—but in a vast[241]income which you never see there must bea vague dissatisfaction, as well as bank-booksand separate accounts, and chequesand other worries which you must infalliblyremember to date. The East teaches usmuch of simplicity and comfort in the personsof its princes. It has taught me thereal magnificence of rupees in a bag.

Atma and I have had a morning of greatanticipations. It is time now to look forward,time to provision the garden againstthe greedy spring, and to make plans. Inall my plans the paling figures largely; itis a hand-rail between us and eternity, naturallythings look well against it. Next yearwe are going to have hollyhocks, singleand double, pink and rose and white, in arampart all along the paling as it followsthe sweep of the shelf, and spraying thicklyout from these the biggest and whitest margueritesthat will consent to come up, andalong the border the broad blue ribbon offorget-me-nots. Farther on where theshelf widens in front of the house and thedeodars rise thick before it, a creamy Devoniensis[242]is already in possession of the paling,and here my goldenrod is to standfretted against the firs, and dwarf sunflowersshall fraternize with it; and about itsskirts shall grow myriads of coreopsis singleand double, and masses of puce-colouredMichaelmas daisies, and at their feet thegrateful simple-minded purple petunia inthe largest families, as thick as ever shelikes. I did not mention it before, becauseone does hate to be always complaining,but Tiglath-Pileser has invaded the gardenwith some Japanese plums; straight up theystick in the widest part of the paling border,and discouragingly healthy they look.Round two of these I have planted portulacaand ringed it with lobelia, and roundthe other two lobelia, and ringed it withlittle pink lilies. The roses in the bedopposite the dining-room window havegrown rather leggy with age, and next yearthey are to rise out of a thick and, as I seeit, low forest of pink and white candytuft,and the bed is to be deeply framed in pansies.We are to have foxgloves on the[243]khud rank above rank, and wallflowers onits more accessible projections, and in therains the gayest crowd of dahlias of theballet, the single degenerates, are to gatherthere. Atma is to get them where he likesand I am to ask no questions. I am homesickfor a certain very sweet, very yellowrather small and not very double brier rosethat belongs to other years when it wasmuch presented to “the teacher,” also for amodest little fringed pink with a dark line onits petals which made the kind of posy oneoffered to one’s grandmother. But I fearthe other years are a country one cannotrediscover in every part; though I haveasked diligently of persons who also inhabitedthem I have not yet found my gentle pinkor my little yellow rose. Then a bed of irisesis to be made just over the kitchen roof, totake the eye off it, and the garden lilies,which are mostly madonnas, are to foregatherin one place instead of being scatteredabout as they are now among the rose-bushes.Thisbe thinks nothing could belovelier than a lily and a rose, but I cannot[244]agree with her. The combination savoursof trop de luxe, it recalls an early Victorianlacquered tea-tray. If she likes to mix hergarden-parties like that she can, but my liliesmust express themselves with no other flowerto interfere with them. A lily has so littleto say to the world; it must have an atmosphereof the completest reticence if it is tospeak at all. The roses will be reinforcedby twenty-five other sorts from the GovernmentGardens at Saharanpore; and thereare to be several new admittances to thehome for decayed gentlewomen. The bordernearest the upper khud has been arranged totake everything we don’t want in other places—thephloxes, the antirrhinums, the lupinsand carnations and gaillardias and surplusesof all sorts which it would be a sin to throwaway. It will be a kind of garden-attic, butthe medley should be bright. Also, to dohim justice, Tiglath-Pileser has given me awild-rose hedge round our whole property,along both roads and up and down thekhuds. Thick and fragrant it will be inMay and starred with creamy blossoms.[245]He said he owed me something on accountof the grafts, and I could not conscientiouslydispute the matter. So that will be my garden,I hope, of next year. It will hold nobrilliant effects; we only want to be gay andmerry on the shelf and to keep certain relationsintact; we have no room to be ambitious.I know now at least where my gardenbegins and where it leaves off, and a littlemore. Next year I hope to pretend to thatintimate knowledge which comes of havinggone over every foot of it, without which noone should say anything, or even write anythingprobably. However, Elizabeth[6] did,and everybody liked it. Elizabeth beganas a complete amateur; and her very amateuritydisarmed criticism. She had nothingbut taste and affection, and her struggles togarden upon this capital have often sympatheticallyoccurred to me during the pastsummer. Frequently I have had occasionto say to her, speaking quite anonymously,“What would you think of that, Elizabeth,supposing you lived on a shelf?” and often[246]in the depression of wondering whether itwas quite fair to try to follow her charmingfashion, I have explained that I really haveto write about my garden; I was turned outin it, I had no more choice than Nebuchadnezzar;and that I sincerely hope I havenot plagiarized her plants. And I assuredher it is a thing I would never do, that thosehereinbefore mentioned grew for me, everyone, from seed or bulb—that I would notever plagiarize from Mr. Johnson, whoseJapanese lilies were glorious to behold thisyear and very moderate.

Notwithstanding these meek statements Ifeel, here at the end of the book and theend of the summer, highly experienced andknowledgeable about gardens. I long topour out accumulated facts, and only adoubt of the relative value of advice producedat an altitude of seven thousand feetin the middle of Asia prevents my doing so.In more serious moments I hardly dare hopethat I have not already talked too muchabout my garden and other things, but nobodyshould be severe upon this who has[247]not discovered the entertainment to be gotout of a perfectly silent visiting public. Ishould confess that I have enjoyed it enormously;it would be becoming in me tothank that mute impersonal body for a delightfulsummer. It is such an originalpleasure to go on saying exactly what youlike and briefly imagine replies, as well asa valuable aid, I am sure, to convalescence.To have increased the sum of the world’shappiness by one’s own is perhaps no greataccomplishment, yet is it so easy? Neithercan it be called especially virtuous to feel alittle better, but what moral satisfaction isthere to compare with it?

The summer and the book are done.The procession of the Days has gone by, allbut a straggler or two carrying a tatteredflag; it took seven months to pass a givenpoint. There is a rustling among the roseswhen the wind comes this way, but nearlyalways the blue void holds a golden silence.Belated butterflies bask on the warm gravelwith wings expanded and closed down.Wooing is dangerous now; shadows overtake[248]you, and a shadow kills. The zinniasare all old soldiers, the Snows have comenearer in the night. Some morning soonthey will have crept over the shelf, but onlyAtma will see that. The rest of the familywill be occupying a spot under the warmdust haze down below, so far down as to bepractically below sea-level. The vicissitudesof some lives!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Literally: “has been finished.”

[4] Country cart.

[5] “La Pia.”

[6] “Elizabeth and Her German Garden.”

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