But just in that happy moment the Tempter gets in. The garden's mistress
or master is beguiled to believe that one may have a garden without the
expense of a gardener and at the same time without any gardening
knowledge. The stable-boy, or the man-of-all-work, or the cook, or the
cottager himself, pushes the lawn-mower, and except for green grass, or
changeable brown and green, their bit of Eden is naked and is not
ashamed.
Or if ashamed, certain other beguilements, other masked democratic
tyrannies, entering, reassure it; bliss of publicity, contempt of
skill, and joy in machinery and machine results. An itinerant ignoramus
comes round with his own lawn-mower, the pushing of which he now makes
his sole occupation for the green half of the year, and the entire
length, breadth and thickness of whose wisdom is a wisdom not of the
lawn but only of the lawn-mower; how to keep its bearings oiled and its
knives chewing fine; and the lawn becomes staringly a factory product.
Then tyranny turns the screw again, and in the bliss of publicity and a
very reasonable desire to make the small home lot look as large as
possible, down come the fences, side and front, and the applauding
specialist of the lawn-mower begs that those obstructions may never be
set up again, because now the householder can have his lawn mowed so
much _quicker_, and he, the pusher, can serve more customers.
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