A GARDEN DIARY 171 



mental eye, so that during that moment we really 

 do see. Of all scents commend me for this 

 awakening quality to the boggy ones. They 

 alone in my experience are really transformatory. 

 For the brief time that their aroma is in one's 

 nostrils one actually is in the place that they 

 recall. 



It is a proof of the demoralising effect of 

 ownership that one of my first impulses nowa- 

 days is a desire to transfer the plants that I see, 

 sometimes that I merely remember, from where 

 they are to where I happen to want them. Yet, 

 when one thinks of it, what an outrage ! Why 

 should one desire to do anything of the sort ? 

 Conceive the contrast, the downfall ; the roomi- 

 ness, the elemental breadth, the cool, rain-satu- 

 rated comfort of the one setting ; the cramped 

 limitation, the unpalatable dryness of the other. 

 Not that I would for worlds disparage our own 

 faithful coppice ; to do so would be to show my- 

 self the merest of ingrates. Was I not an alien, 

 and did it not befriend me ? Was I not roofless, 

 and did it not offer its soil for us to lift a roof 

 over? Still, when one tries to place the one 

 scene beside the other the contrast becomes 

 farcical. The very wind the cold, unsentimental 

 wind must be sensible of such a difference. 

 How much more then a root-extending, acutely 

 sensitive, living thing ! 



I have a profound affection for bog plants, 



