The revolving year has brought us back at last to June. Here is June,
and here are all the June flowers. If June were only always really June,
and if our hearts could always keep time to its weather, then were earth
paradise, and any remoter one might be relegated to the remotest of
Greek kalends. June however is by no means invariably June, while as for
our hearts they are like our eyes, which have a fashion of blinking
sometimes at the light, as those of owls are reported to do, preferring
their own shadowy places, and the night, which at least brings kindly
dreams. Yet are kindly dreams, it may be asked, really the kindliest,
seeing that we wake from them, and know that they are false? Are not
ugly dreams, are not even terrible ones, better, seeing that we wake
from them, and say to ourselves that matters, after all, are not quite
so bad as _that_? It is a question, and, like many questions, a good
deal easier asked than answered.
“If there were dreams to sell,
Pleasant, and sad as well,
And the crier rang his bell,
Which would you buy?”
It is not the time, however, now for dreams, or for dream thoughts. It
is nine o’clock in the morning, and everybody ought therefore to be wide
awake and smiling. The garden at all events is performing its duty in
both these respects, and seems, moreover, to be making encouraging
little signals, like some humble but rather impatient suitor, who wishes
to observe that he has really been waiting a long time, and deserves a
little attention. Perhaps it does. Perhaps, seeing that it is there, and
that we are here, it ought not to fare worse at our hands than our own
dull bodies, which have to be clothed and fed, put to bed, and taken up
again, whatever the less material portion may be feeling at the time.
Here on my table I see is a list of some of our latest seedlings. They
are not alpines this time, only common border plants, with a sprinkling
of candidates for naturalisation, of which this copse can absorb almost
any amount, so long as they are of the right sort. It is not a long
list, and will not therefore take very long to transcribe.