74 A GARDEN DIARY 



of someone, by the way, who actually had tele- 

 graphed out her recommendations to Sir Redvers 

 Buller. As the story reached me the telegram 

 took this form : "Please try to relieve Ladysmith." 

 I hope for the credit of human nature that the 

 tale is true, but if so there is a simple innocence 

 about this form of admonition of which I fear 

 that I should have been personally quite incapable. 

 My own ideas, my own forms of suggestion, are 

 entirely different They are large, nay grandiose, 

 and moreover they are extremely intricate. As 

 I walk about over these lanes and downs I see 

 strategical possibilities in all directions, which 

 cause me to thrill over the magnitude of my own 

 conceptions. 



Towards evening, especially, the sense of what 

 might be, of what, for aught anyone can say to 

 the contrary, still may be, rises almost palpably; 

 a beckoning ghostly phantom of the Great Coming 

 Invasion. Dorking that scene of crushing 

 British disaster is not far off; were I to 

 clamber up the opposite ridge I should be look- 

 ing down on it. Moreover, between one land- 

 scape and another the difference becomes much 

 less when all detail is reduced to one vast blur. 

 ) I have a friendly knoll upon which I some- 

 times take my stand towards sunset hour, and 

 from which I have of late conjured up Biggars- 

 bergs, inaccessible and kopje -covered as heart 

 could desire. It is true that the enemy holding 



