A GARDEN DIARY 61 



acquaintance of so few people nowadays, that 

 we had better make the most of him. Now 

 fuss the good man detests, and change, merely 

 for change's sake, is undoubtedly one of the 

 very worst forms of fuss. Like every other 

 pursuit and following, horticulture no doubt 

 has its battlefields, and those who go out upon 

 them must expect charge and countercharge, 

 rapid assault and varying vicissitude, like other 

 heroes upon other battlefields. For me such 

 combats, I am free to confess, have not even 

 a vicarious charm ; Peace being the only deity 

 to whom I would willingly raise even the 

 smallest of garden altars. With other out-of- 

 door conditions we all aver that it is their 

 stability, their adorable unchangeableness, which 

 lends them in our eyes their most persistent 

 charm. Why then are we not to look for the 

 same charm in our gardens, which after all come 

 nearest home ? That it is a charm easy of attain- 

 ment I were loth to asseverate, but that seems 

 hardly a reason for not endeavouring to attain 

 to it. It is in this direction at all events that 

 my own private plottings and plannings propose 

 to turn. If I must moil and delve ; if I must 

 plant, dig, and contrive now, it is with the fixed 

 and fond determination of before long sitting 

 resolutely down, and doing absolutely nothing ! 



