Notwithstanding these meek statements I feel, here at the end of the book and the end of the summer, highly experienced and knowledgeable about gardens. I long to pour out accumulated facts, and only a doubt of the relative value of advice produced at an altitude of seven thousand feet in the middle of Asia prevents my doing so. In more serious moments I hardly dare hope that I have not already talked too much about my garden and other things, but nobody should be severe upon this who has not discovered the entertainment to be got out of a perfectly silent visiting public. I should confess that I have enjoyed it enormously; it would be becoming in me to thank that mute impersonal body for a delightful summer. It is such an original pleasure to go on saying exactly what you like and briefly imagine replies, as well as a valuable aid, I am sure, to convalescence. To have increased the sum of the world’s happiness by one’s own is perhaps no great accomplishment, yet is it so easy? Neither can it be called especially virtuous to feel a little better, but what moral satisfaction is there to compare with it? The summer and the book are done. The procession of the Days has gone by, all but a straggler or two carrying a tattered flag; it took seven months to pass a given point. There is a rustling among the roses when the wind comes this way, but nearly always the blue void holds a golden silence. Belated butterflies bask on the warm gravel with wings expanded and closed down. Wooing is dangerous now; shadows overtake you, and a shadow kills. The zinnias are all old soldiers, the Snows have come nearer in the night. Some morning soon they will have crept over the shelf, but only Atma will see that. The rest of the family will be occupying a spot under the warm dust haze down below, so far down as to be practically below sea-level. The vicissitudes of some lives! FOOTNOTES: [1] Literally: “has been finished.” [2] England. [3] Quietly. [4] Country cart. [5] “La Pia.” [6] “Elizabeth and Her German Garden.” TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.