I admit, was in the country. Australian
bamboo is determined and rapacious. It is easy to get it into the
garden. It is next to impossible to get it out. The smallest fragment of
root seems to be enough, and up it comes again. The perennial sunflower
is terrifically aggressive. It has a disregard of limits and wants the
world. If its masses of yellow flowers were not so exhilarating, I would
turn it out of my garden altogether. One would like to be able to argue
with these things. I should like to say to those sunflowers: "Try to
take example by the bergamot. It has the same perennial advantages as
yourself, and it is quite beautiful. In addition, the scent of its
leaves pressed in the fingers reminds one of Egypt. You do not find the
bergamot shoving itself forward wherever it has a chance. Contemplate it
and learn modesty." But argument does not avail with the perennial
sunflower. The knife and the spade are the things that it understands.

I fight the weeds of course, but I have vague ideas as to what a weed
is. I am quite merciless towards the bindweed, it is a murderer and a
garrotter; but with the materials at my disposal I could not make
anything quite so beautiful as its flowers. I found two low-growing
things in a flower-bed, which seemed to be of the clover kind. One had
small crimson-brown leaves with a flush of green on them; the other had
a much larger green leaf with a delicate design in grey on it. The
jobbing gardener said they were weeds, he would have turned them out. I
saved their lives, and the one with the reddish-brown leaf rewarded me
with any number of little yellow flowers. Were I a sentimentalist, I
should say that this showed its gratitude. Next year some more of the
same clovery thing came up in the middle of a gravel path, where it was
not wanted; was that gratitude?

When one comes into my garden at the close of a fine summer day, one
does really seem to come into a peaceful place apart, where the fight
for life no longer exists. But the fight for life exists everywhere, and
one can never get away.

Don't go, let me tell you the story of

ALFRED SIMPSON

Alfred Simpson was a nice-looking young man who had independent means
and other attractions. People liked him, but when they spoke of him it
was with a smile. "He is so easily influenced," said some. "He is so
frightfully obstinate," said others. "He has such funny ideas," said
both.

Simpson could be easily influenced by anything