A GARDEN DIARY 5 



and its multifarious contents has lain below my 

 feet, as the Pacific was believed by Keats to have 

 lain below those of Cortez, and if now and then 

 I have been troubled by a passing doubt, a "wild 

 surmise" as to whether all these places really have 

 been seen by my own eyes, I have made haste to 

 put that misgiving aside, as His Majesty King 

 George the Fourth was no doubt in the habit 



o 



of doing, whenever similar misgivings as to the 

 heroic part played by himself at the Battle of 

 Waterloo crossed the royal mind. 



To have been so far, and to have seen so 

 much is good, but to have retained a lowly spirit 

 with it all is even better. To be able, with 

 Alphonse Karr, to set forth on the five hundred 

 and first tour round one's garden, brimming with 

 expectation, and all the certainty of new dis- 

 covery. To be as thrilled over the alternations 

 between the nut-tree walk in winter, and the 

 alpine heights in summer, as ever the family of 

 the Vicar were over those between the blue 

 parlour and the brown. These are the things 

 that really carry a traveller comfortably forward 

 in an easy jog-trot towards his predestined bourne. 

 And if there happen to be a pair of such tra- 

 vellers, a pair of such explorers, and if each of 

 them carries his or her own wallet, or knapsack, 

 and if those two travellers part often, yet often 

 come together again, then what an opening up 

 of budgets takes place ! What a retailing of 



