Vernon Lee

Hortus Vitae: Essays on the Gardening of Life Vernon Lee

This by no means implies that the whole of life is a garden or could be made one. I am not sure even that we ought to try. Indeed, on second thoughts, I feel pretty certain that we ought not. Only such portion of life is our garden as lies, so to speak, close to our innermost
individual dwelling, looked into by our soul's own windows, and surrounded by its walls. A portion of life which is ours exclusively, although we do occasionally lend its key to a few intimates; ours to cultivate just as we please, growing therein either pistachios and dwarf
lemons for preserving, like Voltaire's immortal hero, or more spiritual flowers, "sweet basil and mignonette," such as the Lady of Epipsychidion sent to Shelley; kindly rosemary and balm; or, as may happen, a fine assortment of witch's herbs, infallible for turning us into cats and toads and poisoning our neighbours.

But with whatever we may choose to plant the portion of our life and our thought which is our own, and whatsoever its natural fertility and aspect, this much is certain, that it needs digging, watering, planting, and perhaps most of all, weeding. "Cela est bien dit," repondit Candide, "mais il faut cultiver notre jardin." He was, as you will recollect, answering Dr. Pangloss. One evening, while they were resting from their many tribulations, and eating various kinds of fruit and sweetmeats in their arbour on the Bosphorus, the eminent optimistic philosopher had pointed out at considerable length that the delectable moment they were enjoying was connected by a Leibnitzian chain of cause and effect with sundry other moments of a less obviously desirable character in the earlier part of their several lives.

"For, after all, my dear Candide," said Dr. Pangloss, "let us suppose you had not been kicked out of a remarkably fine castle, magnis accogentissimis cum argumentis a posteriori; suppose also that, etc., etc. had not happened, nor, furthermore, etc., etc., etc.; well, it is quite plain that you would not be in this particular place, _videlicet_ an arbour; and, moreover, in the act of eating preserved lemon-rind and pistachio nuts."

"What you say is true," answered Candide, "but we have to cultivate our garden."

And here I hasten to remark, that although I have quoted and translated these seven immortal words, I would on no account be answerable for their original and exact meaning, any more than for the meaning of more officially grave and reverend texts, albeit perhaps not wiser or nobler ones.

Did the long-suffering hero of the Sage of Ferney accept the chain of cause and effect, and agree that without the kicks, the earthquake, the _auto-da-fe_, and all the other items of his uneasy career, it was impossible he should be eating pistachio nuts and preserved lemon-rind in that arbour? And, in consideration of the bitter sweet of these
delicacies, was he prepared to welcome (retrospectively) the painful preliminaries as blessings in disguise? Did he even, rising to stoical or mystic heights, identify these superficially different phenomena and recognize that their apparent contradiction was real sameness?

Or, should we take it that, refraining from such essential questions, and passing over his philosophical friend's satisfaction in the _causal nexus_, poor Candide was satisfied with pointing out the only practical lesson to be drawn from the whole matter, to wit, that in order to partake of such home-grown dainties, it had been necessary, and most likely would remain necessary, to put a deal of good work into whatever scrap of the soil of life had not been devastated by those Leibnitzian Powers who further Man's felicity in a fashion so energetic but so roundabout?

All these points remain obscure. But even as a play is said to be only the better for the various interpretations which it affords to as many great actors; so methinks, the wisest sayings are often those which state some principle in her "Magda."........