I have two brothers gardeners, Enrico and Emilio. Enrico has sight only of one eye, Emilio is blind both eyes. The two brothers work together in brotherly love, and have only one working eye between them, yet it is wonderful how much good work the one eye accomplishes per day. Emilio sees with his hands. It is weeding that puzzles him most. He never pulls a flower instead of a weed--he feels the difference between them. It is the weeds that elude his fingers as he works along the border that grieve him. Weeding is a fascinating occupation to me. Nice people won’t profane their hands grubbing in common garden soil, but, being a groundling myself, I enjoy the fun of coming into contact with my native element. Clean, sweet, caressing earth, it is the last flowery coverlet all of us will sleep under; why shun thy friendly touch to-day? There is always an abundant crop of weeds to practise on in an Italian garden, and your fingers itch to uproot them to the very last offender. I suppose it is the ruthlessness and slaughter of the deed, the close handgrip on the enemy, that compels you on; and when the skirmish is over, surveying the ground cleared of the foe and the heaps of the slain withering at your feet gives a pleasurable thrill of excitement in the hour of victory. You exult, for there is something done, and well done, to show for your backache. The gardener’s lure is irresistible. The devotee walks in flowerland of his own creation. In dreary winter hours he dreams splendid dreams of himself surrounded by summer harmonies, summer fragrance, and summer flowers, for which he has planned and planted and patiently tended along the covering months of winter and spring. The hour of full realization approaches when the roses mass their rival glories and spread their coloured raptures in the garden that he loves. This puts the crown on the brow of summer. This is the gardener’s festival of the year. He invites his horticultural cronies to tea on the lawn, and they all talk rose jargon together. He takes them on a tour of inspection round the garden, and they congratulate the founder of the feast of flowers. They are happy as a band of Sunday-school children spending the afternoon out. They sit on the lawn under the spreading ilex-tree, which casts ample shadow for their comfort, and the summer sunshine lays ardent on the green-sward around them. It is a genial gathering, but the man who understands not roses would be speechless in their midst and not a little bored. Conversation cools off, the evening shadows lengthen, and in an interlude of silence there is a sort of whispering stillness in the warm evening air, as if the flowers and grass and trees are all saying kind words to one another, for having done their best to please. The lure of the garden is never so poignant as at this great moment, for your heart is brimming of sweet content, and you say to yourself: "Can it be true? Can anything in the world be more beautiful?"