A GARDEN DIARY 103 



to say, amounts to an agony. One feels it in 

 one's very bones. Fear of what its fate may 

 be is the last thought at night, and one awakens 

 to remember it with a sensation of despair which 

 would be ridiculous were it not so real. 



For the odd part of it is that not a single 

 creature near and dear to me is shut up within 

 those walls. My interest in it is therefore a 

 purely external one, the interest of a citizen, 

 nothing more. If we myself, and others in 

 the like case feel it thus acutely, how must the 

 situation stand to-day, to-morrow, all these piti- 

 less, interminable days, to some ? 



