A GARDEN DIARY 139 



things in the world, of Invasion, moved thereto, 

 partly by the desire which assails us at all times, 

 of dilating upon what one knows least, partly 

 by the equally inborn desire of running counter 

 to conventions upon which one has been brought 

 up, and which have been instilled into one's 

 mind ever since one could walk unaided. 



That the difference between soldiers and 

 civilians is an absolute difference, clear as glass, 

 hard as adamant, is one of those conventions. 

 Until the other day I never remember hearing 

 it so much as questioned. Yet how does that 

 fact now stand in the face of all that we 

 have been hearing, seeing, reading about, during 

 the last five months ? If one thing more than 

 another has been brought home to us by this 

 present struggle it is that under modern con- 

 ditions a civilian without the slightest preten- 

 sions to be anything else, so long only as he 

 is a good marksman is not only as valuable, 

 but under many circumstances, far more valuable 

 than the average soldier, who as a rule can just 

 shoot, and nothing more, who has all the finer 

 parts of his art still to learn, and is not at all 

 likely to learn it when he has no more leisurely 

 target to practise upon than the living man. 



It is upon the strength of this revolution 

 that I have been indulging this morning in a 

 private Invasion of my own, specially designed 

 for the exaltation of the rifle-shooting civilian, in 



