196 A GARDEN DIARY 





MAY 26, 1900 



r I "HAT Nature is cruel is not to be denied; 

 -*- the evidences of that cruelty are written 

 out large and red in every woodland, under 

 every hedgerow. That she can be also un- 

 accountably pitiful, or at all events take pains 

 to appear so, is fortunately equally true, and 

 it is a truth that at times comes very near 

 to the heart. This morning at a very early 

 hour there was a tenderness, a kind of hover- 

 ing serenity over everything, that appealed to 

 one like a benediction. The air itself seemed 

 changed ; sanctified. The familiar little paths 

 one walked along were like the approaches to 

 some as yet invisible Temple. 



There are certain pictures of Jean Francois 

 Millet's in which this quality of sanctity is the 

 first thing that strikes one, the more so that 

 the obviously religious element is conspicuously 

 absent from them. His "Angelus" has always 

 seemed to me a poorer composition in this re- 

 spect than some others. When one sees a man 



