"In America we admire a man for what he does--over here you do nothing.
Each day for you is the same. You spend your time as a woman might,
unless you go into the army, the church, or diplomacy. For instance,
you, yourself, what is your ambition? Is there anything you are trying
to do?"
Indolently he shrugged his shoulders, and with a half-lazy arrogance he
answered, "Why should I try to create a personal and trivial future,
when I can, without striving, merely survive from a far more glorious
past? Listen, Mademoiselle, do you think as much can be accomplished by
one short generation as by many? For instance, could a garden such as
this be produced in the lifetime of one man?" He waved his arm in a
circular motion. "It is not alone its plan and its fountains, and its
green shrubbery that make it what it is, but the history of human lives
that is planted in its every turn and corner. The gardens of America are
but newly born from the minds of your landscape architects; in most of
them the trees are but newly planted. This garden was already stately
with ilex and cypress when the first white men of North America were
sowing a little corn. How can you feel romance in a garden where there
is no tradition save of the hours a few laborers have spent in digging?"
Suddenly a look of real ardor came into his face, an animation into his
expression that gave a new charm to his words.
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