122 A GARDEN DIARY 



MARCH 5, 1900 



A LLAH be praised for a leisurely life ! I have 

 -* been visiting A. R. D., whose days are filled 

 with large and various activities ; whose responsi- 

 bilities are great ; whose hours of work are long ; 

 of leisure few and scanty. I admire such indomit- 

 able workers, with an admiration which increases 

 with every year I live, but I envy them, Oh ye 

 gods, not at all ! 



"Cling to the peace of obscurity ; they shall 

 be happy that love thee." Where, I wonder, 

 have I acquired that rather ignominious injunc- 

 tion? There is a seventeenth -century flavour 

 about it which makes it sound respectable, yet 

 at bottom I suppose it is merely a counsel of 

 laziness. Work, far from the curse, is the allevia- 

 tion of the curse ; of that I am as convinced as 

 anybody. At the same time a good deal of the 

 work that goes on around one seems to be rather 

 the product of the unasked volition of the worker, 

 than of any violent external necessity. Obscurity 

 and laziness moreover are far from interchange- 



