NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 1 A Concrete Example (poem by Reginald Arkell) — Let us think and reflect (II)

She is proud of it and genuinely fond of it, and it does not occur to her that anyone might see it differently.

• She finds her own ornaments pleasing: the sundial with its strange device is something “Mrs. Jones thinks rather nice.”
• She works at it with patience, fitting plants “so delicate and small” into the gaps between stones — trouble nobody takes for a garden they do not love.
• She wants it seen: she “once asked me round to see her stones.” The invitation is the clearest evidence of all.
• She can talk about one flower “for quite a quarter of an hour” — fifteen minutes on a single plant is the enthusiasm of a collector.

Because it is a comic exaggeration — hyperbole — and it does three things at once.

• It measures the plants. No ordinary trowel could fit into the cracks between paving stones; the speaker pretends the only possible tool is a pin.
• It measures his opinion. He has already said the plants “don’t mean anything at all”, and the pin puts a picture to that dismissal. He is not describing the plants so much as his own bafflement — “I can’t think how she gets them in.”
• It prepares the ending. Once the reader has accepted that the plants are almost invisible, the last line becomes possible: a flower that small can be stood upon by a man who is looking for it.

From her gardening style: she is eccentric and confident about it. She has chosen stone over greenery, and unusual objects over conventional ones. She is patient — the tiny plants between the stones need a steady hand and a good deal of time. And she is attentive to what most people would never look at twice.

From her interaction with the speaker: she is hospitable — she is the one who invites him round. She is enthusiastic, and unhurried enough to talk about one flower for a quarter of an hour. Most tellingly, she is good-humoured: her neighbour is standing on her treasured flower, and her reply is four calm words — “You’re standing on it.” There is no scolding and no fuss.

It does — and the proof is that the poem’s only victim is the speaker himself.

• She has made something of her own. Her garden copies nobody. Whatever else it is, it is original, and the poem gives it four lines of careful description rather than dismissing it.
• She cares for what is easily overlooked. Anyone can grow a rose bed. It takes gentleness and patience to keep plants alive in the cracks between stones.
• She is generous. She invites her neighbour in to share what she loves, expecting him to enjoy it.
• She is unruffled at the end. Her flower is being trodden on and she does not complain — she simply answers the question.
• The last line makes her the one who sees clearly. The joke falls on the speaker, who has been hunting for something that was under his foot. He is left looking foolish; she is not.

That value lies in the seeing, not in the thing seen.

Two people stand in one small garden. For Mrs. Jones it is full of interest — a strange device worth admiring, plants worth an hour’s conversation, a flower worth showing to a neighbour. For the speaker the same garden is a heap of stones with a few things in it that “don’t mean anything at all”. Neither of them is lying. They are simply noticing different things, and each is quite sure his own view is the ordinary one.

The last couplet settles the argument, and not in the speaker’s favour. What one person can talk about for a quarter of an hour, another can stand on without ever seeing it. The joke is aimed at the habit of assuming that whatever we fail to notice cannot be worth noticing.