ion. That night I did not close my eyes; the night after I slept
longer and more soundly than I remember to have done for a score of
years. Once or twice in the first week I had a hysterical feeling; I
scarce kept myself from shedding tears. And the strange thing is that it
seems to have happened so long ago; I seem to have been a free man for
many a twelvemonth, instead of only for two. Indeed, that is what I have
often thought about forms of true happiness; the brief are quite as
satisfying as those that last long. I wanted, before my death, to enjoy
liberty from care, and repose in a place I love. That was granted me;
and, had I known it only for one whole year, the sum of my enjoyment
would have been no whit less than if I live to savour it for a decade.

XXIV.

The honest fellow who comes to dig in my garden is puzzled to account for
my peculiarities; I often catch a look of wondering speculation in his
eye when it turns upon me. It is all because I will not let him lay out
flower-beds in the usual way, and make the bit of ground in front of the
house really neat and ornamental. At first he put it down to meanness,
but he knows by now that that cannot be the explanation. That I really
prefer a garden so poor and plain that every cottager would be ashamed of
it, he cannot bring himself to believe, and of course I have long since
given up trying to explain myself. The good man probably concludes that
too many books and the habit of solitude have somewhat affected what he
would call my "reasons."

The only garden flowers I care for are the quite old-fashioned roses,
sunflowers, hollyhocks, lilies and so on, and these I like to see growing
as much as possible as if they were wild. Trim and symmetrical beds are
my abhorrence, and most of the flowers which are put into them--hybrids
with some grotesque name--Jonesia, Snooksia--hurt my eyes. On the other
hand, a garden is a garden, and I would not try to introduce into it the
flowers which are my solace in lanes and fields. Foxgloves, for
instance--it would pain me to see them thus transplanted.

I think of foxgloves, for it is the moment of their glory. Yesterday I
went to the lane which I visit every year at this time, the deep, rutty
cart-track, descending between banks covered with giant fronds of the
polypodium, and overhung with wych-elm and hazel, to that cool, grassy
nook where the noble flowers hang on stems all but of my own height.
Nowher