MARGINAL COMMENT
NICOLSON By HAROLD
LL my life I have suffered, more or less uncomplain- ingly, from clumsiness, and therefore incompetence, in Physical clumsiness is not, however, a defect that fades from us with advancing age. I am forced to observe that my con- emporaries do not tumble as often as I tumble over hidden stools, tables, or recumbent dogs : their coffee cups do not splash. as much as mine-splash, into their saucers : they handle ink with greater delicacy, nor do their Biro pens leave dark violet patches upon the forehead or the nose. It is with sadness that I have watched them untying the parcels that reach them from the book-shops or the publishers; they will converse amicably and without apparent distraction while undoing the knots of string; they do not, as I do, reach in a fever of exasperation for the scissors or the knife. Their clothes also are for me objects of silent humiliation. Clean they are, with creases in the right places and no creases in the wrong places : their ties look as if they were always ironed and their shirt- collars remain straight and smooth; little do they realise the amount of time and money that I expend in my attempts to imitate such deftness. It is true of course that after a certain age one is not constantly exposed to the old humiliation of being bad at games. I do not really mind so much today being unable to play ball, since it is unlikely that any occasion will arise when such inability will expose me to mortification. But I do mind very much that the solitary hobby that I still love and practise should prove recalcitrant to my hand, eye and brain. I know that I shall never be a good gardener in the Vincent Square sense of the phrase.
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It is not from any reluctance to take trouble. My gardening tools hang in a neat and shining row upon their pegs. At one end of the row is fixed a small wooden batten with which, when the afternoon's work is over, I remove from the prongs or blades of my tools the accumulated marl and mould. At the physical matters. When as a child I would play upon the drawing-room carpet, the toy trains with which I was pro- vided would immediately be dislocated or squashed, whereas the lead soldiers, whom with great pains I would arrange in advancing platoons or cohorts, would suddenly and simul- taneously be flattened by a backward movement of my arm. The boats which I would sail upon the pond became entangled in weeds; when I sought with the aid of a branch or stick to induce them to resume the Cowes manner, they also would fall sideways, rendering their jibs and mainsails wet pieces of cloth. At school, the humiliations I endured in the presence of my elders were even more frequent. My bats and racquets never appeared to strike the balls at the right time or place, whereas, when it came to catching or kicking the balls, the flurried anxiety with which I sought to execute the gestures exposed me to universal dispraisal. When I reached the stage of rod, gun and saddle I became, not inexpert merely, but a danger to myself and others. What rendered the position so poignant was that I really did desire to excel in all these things. I have never been among those who can ease their wounded pride by reflecting that, whereas they could write a quite decent copy of Greek iambics, the captain of the school fifteen could not. My understanding of the humanities, even in my boyhood, was, I well remember, more instinctive than that. It would be hubristic, I knew, to question the natural eminence of the school prefects : if one wished to become beautiful and good it was essential to excel, not in music only, but also in gymnastics : so I consoled myself with the thought that the day would come when I and my companions would be too old to play football, and when we would sit in the sun together, discussing the adventures of literature and the quietude of art.
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other end of the row hangs a flannel shirt, tattered and frayed, with which I polish the tools, recalling as I do so the day twenty-two years ago when I purchased that shirt at Santa Fe. There are labels, and neat hives of green string, and trugs, and and india-rubber mat on which to kneel when the ground is wet. Moreover I have a large note-book called " My Garden Book " in which I enter the names and origins of the bulbs or corms that I have planted, and insert instructions to myself regarding the further work to be accomplished this year in expectation of 1953. Nothing could be more expert, more tidy, more prac- tical, more efficiently composed that these aids and preparations. I should perhaps explain that I am only permitted to exercise my ingenuity on a comparatively small and detached portion of the garden; and that I am supposed to " specialise " on spring-flowering plants. Thus the disasters of my known in- competence are tactfully restricted both in space and time. I felt sure that the many hours I spent last autumn in making lists from catalogues and in carting leaf-mould from the wood would this spring be rewarded with a burst of magnificence such as would make even Lord Aberconway admire my prowess. I watched with anxiety the unfolding of the year. It was true that the sparrows had stripped in advance every bud from the forsythia, but what did that matter ? Nobody likes forsythia in any case, and I knew, from the lists in My Garden Book, that there were far more glorious wonders to come. I have waited in vain.
This astonishing Easter and the hot days that followed brought out in all their strength and colour the flowers that other people had planted in the other sections of the garden. It was only my own little' strip that remained as sparse and scrannel as an Indian lawn. Not one of my primroses showed a single flower; the omphaloides that I had scattered among them displayed only a thin cold leaf; a few anemones broke the silence and the daffodils were fine. But why had the Muscari Tubergenianum, which last year were as blue and largo as hyacinths, declined to mingy blobs ? Why had only three of the Narcissus Watieri, which had been described in the cata- logue as " perfectly hardy," consented to show their noses, refusing to smile in our northern sunshine after the parched summers of Tafilet ? Why also is it that, even when a bulb or two is so kind as to produce itself, I invariably forget the name by which it is called. Carefully do I print these dog- latin words upon my labels in the autumn; but the rains of winter have by now rendered them illegible, and who am I to remember whether a flower is rugulosus or rupicola ? The visitors who dawdle along the path while I am weeding will ask me from time to time to what variety a particular anemone belongs. Sometimes I am tempted to invent names culled from Aristophanes, but if I start to write it down, then shame overwhelms me and I confess that I have forgotten or have never known. Incompetent again; bad at games; clumsy about animate as well as inanimate objects; an elderly failure :— with such reproaches do I slink back into my room.
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Some people, I know, find botanical names amusing. I do not find them amusing; I only find them changeable, difficult to remember accurately, and ignorantly formed. This year I am going to keep My Garden Book with even greater precision and to acquire metal labels that last a long time. I shall dig up the forsythia and have no more primroses for the sparrows to nibble. My own section of the garden is going to be brighter and better than any other section of the garden. I shall prove that, when speedy reactions between eye and arm are not required, I am as good at pastimes as anybody else. And, after all, who really expects, who really wants, flowers to flourish exactly the same every year ? They are living, sentient things with quirks of their own : we must accept their moods.
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