I recently read the greatest sentence every written about gardening.
If you don’t have much time, here it is.
“…Gardening simply corrodes the character.”
If you have a bit more time, allow me to give this sentence—really a sentence fragment— some context.
I recently read Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 by Joyce Dennys (1985). It’s a series of fictional letters written during World War II for a magazine, The Sketch, which were later published in two books. Henrietta’s War and Henrietta Sees it Through: More News from the Homefront: 1942-1945. (Both are out of print, but you can find used copies for not astronomical prices on Bookfinder.)
In Henrietta’s War, one of Henrietta’s letters describes visiting an open garden and noting how otherwise upstanding citizens were seen stuffing seeds and cutting into their handbags and pockets. That was a bad thing to do back then, and is still a bad thing to do today.
But, the “greatest line ever written about gardening” wasn’t exactly about the stealing, bad as that was. It was about a perfectly nice woman making a catty comment about the garden.
And I quote.
“‘It’s like a seedsman’s catalogue!’ said Lady B, with a contemptuous snort.
Charles and I looked at each other with our eyes wide open. To have a garden like a seedman’s catalogue has always been our wildest ambition. Besides, it was the first catty thing we had ever heard Lady B say, which just shows how far from being an ennobling pursuit, gardening simply corrodes the character.”
That last phrase has stayed in my mind for day. Days, I tell you.
“Gardening simply corrodes the character.”
I want to embroider it on a pillow, or put it on a little sign to stick in my garden.
“Gardening simply corrodes the character.”
Or maybe I’ll just make a little graphic to share.
In so many ways, it does! Admit it!
(I am aware that neither book I’ve referred to here are gardening books, per se, but we can find gardening anywhere and everywhere, can’t we?)
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