For my own part, as the country life, and this part of it more
particularly (namely, gardening), were the inclination of my youth
itself, so they are the pleasure of my age; and I can truly say, that
among many
great employments that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or
sought for any one of them, but often endeavored to escape from them,
into the ease and freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own
way and his own pace in the common paths or circles of life.
The measure of choosing well is, whether a man likes what he has chosen,
which, I thank God, has befallen me; and though among the follies of my
life building and planting have not been the least, and have cost me
more than I have the confidence to own, yet they have been fully
recompensed by the sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where,
since my resolution taken of never entering again into any public
employments, I have passed five years without ever going once to town,
though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there always ready
to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of affectation, as some have
thought it, but a mere want of desire or humor to make so small a
remove.