Tom Lefroy Quote – Week 10

We have left behind Tom Lefroy for a while, so it’s time to revisit some of Tom’s personal aspects: gardening. Taken from his son’s (i.e. Thomas Lefroy) note in the Memoir of Chief Justice Lefroy page 51:

He had a great taste for gardening in early life, which induced him soon after his marriage to take a lot of ground in Leeson-street, (then on the outskirts of Dublin). On this lot he built the house which continued to be his town residence up to his death, enclosing a garden of about half an English acre; and here after he gave up going Circuit, he constantly spent a great part of his evenings during the spring and summer months in pruning his fruit trees and other garden work. I have still vividly before me our whole merry-hearted group – parents and children sallying forth into the garden after dinner, the youngest as well as the oldest taking share in the busy task of weeding borders, watering flowers, cutting shreds, or sitting at his side while he pruned the fruit-trees, and reading the pretty story book which he had bought on his way from Court in order that the evening might not pass without profit as well as pleasure.

Sigh…Beautiful… is it not? Reminding me that I must buy more flowers and shrubberies for my tiny weenie garden.

Pic: Camille Pissarro's The Gardener – Old Peasant with Cabbage