A GARDEN DIARY 169 



APRIL 17, 1900 



r I "HE west wind this morning had a rolling 

 * sonorousness which sent my thoughts flying, 

 swift as light, across all the little intervening 

 ridges, over the plains, over the villages, across 

 endless housetops, through multitudinous suburbs, 

 over the big, ugly, stately town ; out again, 

 over fresh sweeps of more or less encumbered 

 green fields, hedgerows, lanes, roads ; past 

 meadows and orchards, redolent of centuries 

 of care ; past brickfields and coalfields, redolent 

 only of defiling greed ; over a fretful space of 

 sea ; across more fields, less enclosed, less 

 cultivated, but certainly not less green. On 

 and on breathlessly, until I stood free of all 

 encumbrances, free of any thought of luggage, 

 conveyance, or the need of a roof to shelter 

 under upon a very familiar spot, close to the 

 tumbling breast of the Atlantic. 



The clearness, or lack of clearness, with which 

 certain familiar spots rise before the eye is one 

 of the minor mysteries of life ; mysteries which 



