I remember years ago to have heard Ysolet, in a lecture at the Sorbonne,
state that the "struggle for life" among the plants was fiercer and more
tragic than that among human beings. It was mere words to me then. In
the short three weeks that I have been out here in my hilltop garden I
have learned to know how true that was. Sometimes I am tempted to have a
garden of weeds. I suppose my neighbors would object if I let them all
go to seed and sow these sins of agriculture all over the tidy farms
about me.

Often these lovely mornings I take a long walk with the dog before
breakfast. He is an Airedale, and I am terribly proud of him and my
neighbors terribly afraid of him. I am half inclined to believe that he
is as afraid of them as they are of him, but I keep that suspicion, for
prudential reasons, to myself. At any rate, all passers keep at a
respectful distance from me and him.

Our usual walk is down the hill to the north, toward the shady route
that leads by the edge of the canal to Meaux. We go along the fields,
down the long hill until we strike into a footpath which leads through
the woods to the road called "Paves du Roi" and on to the canal, from
which a walk of five minutes takes us to the Marne. After we cross the
road at the foot of the hill there is not a house, and the country is so
pretty--undulating ground, in every tint of green and yellow. From the
high bridge that crosses the canal the picture is--well, is
French-canally, and you know what that means--green-banked,
tree-shaded, with a towpath bordering the straight line of water, and
here and there a row of broad long canal-boats moving slowly through the
shadows.