rder like a procession marshalled by a
herald. He possessed the garden intellectually and spiritually, while
I only possessed it politically. I know more about flowers than
coal-owners know about coal; for at least I pay them honour when they
are brought above the surface of the earth. I know more about gardens
than railway shareholders seem to know about railways: for at least I
know that it needs a man to make a garden; a man whose name is Adam. But
as I walked on that grass my ignorance overwhelmed me—and yet that
phrase is false, because it suggests something like a storm from the sky
above. It is truer to say that my ignorance exploded underneath me, like
a mine dug long before; and indeed it was dug before the beginning of
the ages. Green bombs of bulbs and seeds were bursting underneath me
everywhere; and, so far as my knowledge went, they had been laid by
a conspirator. I trod quite uneasily on this uprush of the earth; the
Spring is always only a fruitful earthquake. With the land all alive
under me I began to wonder more and more why this man, who had made the
garden, did not own the garden. If I stuck a spade into the ground, I
should be astonished at what I found there...and just as I thought this
I saw that the gardener was astonished too.

Just as I was wondering why the man who used the spade did not profit by
the spade, he brought me something he had found actually in my soil. It
was a thin worn gold piece of the Georges, of the sort which are called,
I believe, Spade Guineas. Anyhow, a piece of gold.

If you do not see the parable as I saw it just then, I doubt if I can
explain it just now. He could make a hundred other round yellow fruits:
and this flat yellow one is the only sort that I can make. How it came
there I have not a notion—unless Edmund Burke dropped it in his
hurry to get back to Butler's Court. But there it was: this is a cold
recital of facts. There may be a whole pirate's treasure lying under
the earth there, for all I know or care; for there is no interest in a
treasure without a Treasure Island to sail to. If there is a treasure it
will never be found, for I am not interested in wealth beyond the dreams
of avarice since I know that avarice has no dreams, but only insomnia.
And, for the other party, my gardener would never consent to dig up the
garden.

Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed with intellectual emotions when I saw
that answer to my question; the question of why th