July

July 11th.--There has been no rain since the day before Whitsunday,
five weeks ago, which partly, but not entirely, accounts for the
disappointment my beds have been. The dejected gardener went mad
soon after Whitsuntide, and had to be sent to an asylum. He took
to going about with a spade in one hand and a revolver in the other,
explaining that he felt safer that way, and we bore it quite patiently,
as becomes civilised beings who respect each other's prejudices,
until one day, when I mildly asked him to tie up a fallen creeper--
and after he bought the revolver my tones in addressing him
were of the mildest, and I quite left off reading to him aloud--
he turned round, looked me straight in the face for the first time
since he has been here, and said, "Do I look like Graf X- --(a great
local celebrity), or like a monkey?" After which there was nothing
for it but to get him into an asylum as expeditiously as possible.
There was no gardener to be had in his place, and I have only
just succeeded in getting one; so that what with the drought,
and the neglect, and the gardener's madness, and my blunders,
the garden is in a sad condition; but even in a sad condition it
is the dearest place in the world, and all my mistakes only make
me more determined to persevere.

The long borders, where the rockets were, are looking dreadful.
The rockets have done flowering, and, after the manner of rockets:
in other walks of life, have degenerated into sticks;
and nothing else in those borders intends to bloom this summer.
The giant poppies I had planted out in them in April have either
died off or remained quite small, and so have the columbines;
here and there a delphinium droops unwillingly, and that is all.
I suppose poppies cannot stand being moved, or perhaps they were not
watered enough at the time of transplanting; anyhow, those borders
are going to be sown to-morrow with more poppies for next year;
for poppies I will have, whether they like it or not, and they
shall not be touched, only thinned out.

Well, it is no use being grieved, and after all, directly I
come out and sit under the trees, and look at the dappled sky,
and see the sunshine on the cornfields away on the plain,
all the disappointment smooths itself out, and it seems
impossible to be sad and discontented when everything
about me is so radiant and kind.

To-day is Sunday, and the garden is so quiet, that, sitting here in
this shady corner watching the lazy shadows stretching themselves across
the grass, and listening to the rooks quarrelling in the treetops, I almost
expect to hear English church bells ringing for the afternoon service.
But the church is three miles off, has no bells, and no afternoon service.
Once