42 A GARDEN DIARY 



conscious of the vandalism of trying to get rid of 

 an object immeasurably more beautiful than any 

 of the plants one thrusts it aside for. In the 

 second place, there is a sense of absurdity and 

 futility, which is strongly upon one all the time. 

 Mrs. Partington, in her efforts at sweeping back 

 the Atlantic Ocean with her broom, was hardly 

 a more conspicuous instance of misplaced energy 

 than such attempts to suppress and control the 

 exuberant green waves, the abounding vitality, of 

 our own magnificent, indomitable bracken. 



Even where humiliating struggles like these 

 have ceased to be necessary, how slight an 

 excrescence this whole business that we call 

 ownership really is ; how strong, how deeply 

 rooted the state of things which it has momen- 

 tarily superseded. Let the so-called owner relax 

 his self-assertiveness for ever so short a period ; 

 let him and his myrmidons depart for a while 

 upon their travels, and how swiftly the whole 

 fabric rushes remorselessly back to its original 

 condition. And why not ? What can be more 

 absolutely to be expected ? Nor need we even 

 stop at the garden, the farm, the house, or any 

 similar chattel. Even ourselves, sophisticated 

 little creatures though we be, in how many ways 

 we remain the accessories, rather than the masters, 

 of our environment ? For a time, especially in 

 towns, we manage to conceal this truth from our- 

 selves. We pretend that we have remodelled 



