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137
The Solitary Summer
·
Elizabeth Von Arnim
8
The
first
two
years
I
had
this
garden,
I
was
determined
to
do
exactly
as
I
chose
in
it,
and
to
have
no
arrangements
of
plants
that
I
had
not
planned,
and
no
plants
but
those
I
knew
and
loved;
so,
fearing
that
an
experienced
gardener
would
profit
by
my
ignorance,
then
about
as
absolute
as
it
could
be,
and
thrust
all
his
bedding
nightmares
upon
me,
and
fill
the
place
with
those
dreadful
salad
arrangements
so
often
seen
in
the
gardens
of
the
indifferent
rich,
I
would
only
have
a
meek
man
of
small
pretensions,
who
would
be
easily
persuaded
that
I
knew
as
much
as,
or
more
than,
he
did
himself.
I
had
three
of
these
meek
men
one
after
the
other,
and
learned
what
I
might
long
ago
have
discovered,
that
the
less
a
person
knows,
the
more
certain
he
is
that
he
is
right,
and
that
no
weapons
yet
invented
are
of
any
use
in
a
struggle
with
stupidity.
The
first
of
these
three
went
melancholy
mad
at
the
end
of
a
year;
the
second
was
love-sick,
and
threw
down
his
tools
and
gave
up
his
situation
to
wander
after
the
departed
siren
who
had
turned
his
head;
the
third,
when
I
inquired
how
it
was
that
the
things
he
had
sown
never
by
any
chance
came
up,
scratched
his
head,
and
as
this
is
a
sure
sign
of
ineptitude,
I
sent
him
away.
Then
I
sat
down
and
thought.
I
had
been
here
two
years
and
worked
hard,
through
these
men,
at
the
garden;
I
had
done
my
best
to
learn
all
I
could
and
make
it
beautiful;
I
had
refused
to
have
more
than
an
inferior
gardener
because
of
his
supposed
more
perfect
obedience,
and
one
assistant,
because
of
my
desire
to
enjoy
the
garden
undisturbed;
I
had
studied
diligently
all
the
gardening
books
I
could
lay
hands
on;
I
was
under
the
impression
that
I
am
an
ordinarily
intelligent
person,
and
that
if
an
ordinarily
intelligent
person
devotes
his
whole
time
to
studying
a
subject
he
loves,
success
is
very
probable;
and
yet
at
the
end
of
two
years
what
was
my
garden
like?
The
failures
of
the
first
two
summers
had
been
regarded
with
philosophy;
but
that
third
summer
I
used
to
go
into
it
sometimes
and
cry.
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