Do you ever find yourself bursting into a sort of lunatic laughter at the sheer prettiness of things?

Well, I love geraniums, and anybody who does not love geraniums must obviously be a depraved and loathsome person.

Long experience has taught me that people who do not like geraniums have something morally unsound about them. Sooner or later you will find them out; you will discover that they drink, or steal books, or speak sharply to cats. Never trust a man or a woman who is not passionately devoted to geraniums.

Do you ever find yourself bursting into a sort of lunatic laughter at the sheer prettiness of things?

Most people, early in November, take last looks at their gardens, are are then prepared to ignore them until the spring. I am quite sure that a garden doesn't like to be ignored like this. It doesn't like to be covered in dust sheets, as though it were an old room which you had shut up during the winter. Especially since a garden knows how gay and delightful it can be, even in the very frozen heart of the winter, if you only give it a chance.

A garden is a place for shaping a little world of your own according to your heart's desire.

Let us be honest: most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked around the house with a saintly expression.