"I can put my finger right on it." "You'll find it," said Mrs.Vedder, "in the chapter on 'Hedges.'" "You are wrong, my dear," he responded, "it is in 'Mistakes of Citizens in Country Life.'" He turned the leaves eagerly.
"No," he said, "here it is in 'Rural Taste.' Let me read you the passage, Mr.--" "Grayson." "-- Mr.Grayson.

The Chinaman's name was Lieu-tscheu.

'What is it,' asks this old Chinaman, 'that we seek in the pleasure of a garden?
It has always been agreed that these plantations should make men amends for living at a distance from what would be their more congenial and agreeable dwelling-place--in the midst of nature, free and unrestrained.'" "That's it," I exclaimed, "and the old Chinaman was right! A garden excuses civilization." "It's what brought us here," said Mrs.Vedder.
With that we fell into the liveliest discussion of gardening and farming and country life in all their phases, resolving that while there were bugs and blights, and droughts and floods, yet upon the whole there was no life so completely satisfying as life in which one may watch daily the unfolding of natural life.
A hundred things we talked about freely that had often risen dimly in my own mind almost to the point--but not quite--of spilling over into articulate form.

The marvellous thing about good conversation is that it brings to birth so many half-realized thoughts of our own--besides sowing the seed of innumerable other thought-plants.

How they enjoyed their garden, those two, and not only the garden itself, but all the lore and poetry of gardening! We had been talking thus an hour or more when, quite unexpectedly, I had what was certainly one of the most amusing adventures of my whole life.
I can scarcely think of it now without a thrill of pleasure.