I took a cottage in the country on a day when I had got to the fag-end
of the very last straw, and felt I could not endure for another minute
the screech of the trains, the honking of motors, the clanging of
bells, the clatter of milk-carts, the grind-and-screel of electric
cars, the ever-ringing telephone, the rattle and roar of the general
traffic, the all-pervading odour of petrol, and the many other horrors
that make both day and night hideous in our great city, and reduce the
workers to nervous wreckage.
The cottage has been so arranged that not one solitary thing within its
walls shall bear any relation to the city left far behind; and nothing
is allowed to remind the occupants of the business rush, the social
scramble, and the electric-light-type of existence that have become
integral parts of modern life in towns.
Here, to keep my idle hands from mischief, I made me a Flower-patch.