Paradise Garden

Paradise Garden, by George
Gibbs

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Title: Paradise Garden The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment
Author: George Gibbs
Release Date: April 6, 2005 [EBook #15570]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GARDEN ***

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PARADISE GARDEN
THE SATIRICAL NARRATIVE OF A GREAT EXPERIMENT

BY GEORGE GIBBS
AUTHOR OF THE YELLOW DOVE, ETC.
I have considered well his loss of time And how he cannot be a perfect
man Not being tried and tutored in the world.
--TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM A. HOTTINGER
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Printed in the United States of America
[Illustration: "'Love!' he sneered ... 'I thought you'd say that.'"]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT
II. JERRY
III. JERRY GROWS
IV. ENTER EVE
V. THE MINX RETURNS
VI. THE CABIN
VII. JACK BALLARD TAKES CHARGE
VIII. JERRY EMERGES

IX. FOOT-WORK
X. MARCIA
XI. THE SIREN
XII. INTRODUCING JIM ROBINSON
XIII. UNA
XIV. JERRY GOES INTO TRAINING
XV. THE UNKNOWN UNMASKED
XVI. THE FIGHT
XVII. MARCIA RECANTS
XVIII. TWO EMBASSIES
XIX. THE PATH IN THE WOODS
XX. REVOLT
XXI. JERRY ASKS QUESTIONS
XXII. THE CHIPMUNK
XXIII. THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY
XXIV. FEET OF CLAY
XXV. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
XXVI. DRYAD AND SATYR
XXVII. REVELATIONS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'Love!' he sneered ... 'I thought you'd say that.'"
"In the evenings sometimes I read while Jerry whittled"
"This then was Jerry's house-party--!"
"'Have pity, Jerry,' she whimpered"

PARADISE GARDEN
CHAPTER I
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT
It might be better if Jerry Benham wrote his own memoir, for no matter
how veracious, this history must be more or less colored by the point of
view of one irrevocably committed to an ideal, a point of view which
Jerry at least would insist was warped by scholarship and stodgy by
habit. But Jerry, of course, would not write it and couldn't if he would,
for no man, unless lacking in sensibility, can write a true autobiography,
and least of all could Jerry do it. To commit him to such a task would
be much like asking an artist to paint himself into his own landscape.
Jerry could have painted nothing but impressions of externals, leaving
out perforce the portrait of himself which is the only thing that matters.
So I, Roger Canby, bookworm, pedagogue and student of philosophy,
now recite the history of the Great Experiment and what came of it.
It is said that Solomon and Job have best spoken of the misery of man,
the former the most fortunate, the latter the most unfortunate of
creatures. And yet it seems strange to me that John Benham, the
millionaire, Jerry's father, cynic and misogynist, and Roger Canby,
bookworm and pauper, should each have arrived, through different
mental processes, at the same ideal and philosophy of life. We both
disliked women, not only disliked but feared and distrusted them,
seeing in the changed social order a menace to the peace of the State

and the home. The difference between us was merely one of condition;
for while I kept my philosophy secret, being by nature reticent and
unassertive, John Benham had both the means and the courage to put
his idealism into practice.
Life seldom makes rapid adjustments to provide for its mistakes, and
surely only the happiest kind of accident could have thrown me into the
breach when old John Benham died, for I take little credit to myself in
saying that there are few persons who could have fitted so admirably
into a difficult situation.
Curiously enough this happy accident had come from the most
unexpected source. I had tried and failed at many things since leaving
the University. I had corrected proofs in a publishing office, I had
prepared backward youths for their exams, and after attempting life in a
broker's office downtown, for which I was as little fitted as I should
have been for the conquest of the Polar regions, I found myself one fine
morning down to my last few dollars, walking the streets with an
imminent prospect of speedy starvation. The fact of death, as an
alternative to the apparently actual, did not disconcert me. I shouldn't
have minded dying in the least, were it not for the fact that I had hoped
before that event to have expounded for modern consumption certain
theories of mine upon the dialectics of Hegel. As my money dwindled I
was reduced to