I have a grudge against phrenologists myself. I had a relative who went to one when he was a young man, and was told that he had a wonderful baritone voice that he ought to cultivate. Up to that time he had only played the flute, but afterwards he sang every evening through a long life.
It distressed Banksleigh to see me lying about in hammocks on the verandah. He usually managed to give the vines in my neighborhood extra attention--like Garibaldi, he was a confirmed pruner. He told me that he wished I would take up New Thought, and was sure that if I thought strong I'd be strong. I wonder? One summer, lying in bed in a hospital where the heat was terrific, I found myself repeating over and over:
"Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting, Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,"
and finding it far more cooling than iced orange juice. Was not I proving Banksleigh's contention? I was thinking cool and I was cool. In his own case New Thought seemed to work. He always looked ready to give up forever, and yet he never did.
California is full of people with queer quirks and they aren't confined to gardeners. I haven't had a hair-dresser who wasn't occult or psychic or something, from the Colonial Dame with premonitions to the last one, who had both inspirations and vibrations, and my hair keeps right on coming out.
I don't quite understand why gardeners should be queer. They say that cooks invariably become affected in time by so much bending over a hot stove, and that is easy to understand, but bending over nature ought to have quite the opposite effect, but it doesn't always. The lady gardener who laid out the garden that finally replaced our wild-flower tangle, proved that. She had a voice that would be wonderful in a shipyard, a firmness and determination that would be an asset to Congress and a very kind heart, also much taste and infinite knowledge of the preferences and peculiarites of California plants. Her right-hand man, "Will," was also odd. Unfortunately, his ideas were almost the opposite of hers. Before they arrived at our gate sounds of altercation were only too plain. She liked curves in the walks, he preferred corners; she liked tangles, he liked regular beds. What we liked seemed to be going to cut very little figure. All that was lacking was our architect friend, who had made the sketches and offered various suggestions of "amusing" things we might do. He also is firm, though his manner is mild, so the situation would have been even more "amusing" for the family on the side lines, had he been present. Owing to the placing of the house, we are doomed to have a lopsided garden whatever we do, but we want it to look wayward rather than eccentric. After a battle fought over nearly every inch of the ground the lady was victorious, for Will said to me as he watched her motor disappear: "I might as well do what she says or she'll make me do it over." In this J---- and I heartily concurred, for the simplest of arithmetical calculations would show that it would otherwise prove expensive.