A GARDEN DIARY 123 



able terms, seeing that the majority of the hard- 

 workers of the world are, and as a necessity 

 always will be, obscure. It is only in our little 

 fussy artistic or literary coteries that the two ideas 

 have attained to a sort of accidental connection. 

 Personally I have a relish, I might almost say 

 a passion for obscurity. The retort is of course 

 easy, and I am able to reply to myself that 

 the alternative has never been pressed upon my 

 attention with any very urgent insistence. That 

 is true, but does not really affect the matter. 

 Honestly, I do regard obscurity as a blessing, 

 apart from such satisfactions it may provide for 

 laziness. For what does it mean ? It means 

 that you belong to yourself; that you have your 

 years, your days, hours, and minutes undisposed 

 of, unbargained for, unwatched, and unwished 

 for by anybody. It means that you are free 

 to go in and out without witnesses ; free as 

 the grass, free rather as the birds of the air. 

 Further, I am inclined to think that only 

 Obscurity can properly and heartily enjoy his 

 sunsets, moon-rises, spring mornings, running 

 streams, first flowers, and all the rest of the good 

 cheap joys that lie about his path. The known 

 and admired person is expected to make capital 

 out of such matters, and he probably does so too, 

 poor fellow ! Yet upon the untrammelled enjoy- 

 ment of such things how much, not only of the 

 satisfaction, but of the peace of life depends ? 



