A GARDEN DIARY 197 



standing with his hat off in the middle of a field, 

 in the company of a woman, who clasps her hands, 

 and looks down, one knows what one is expected 

 to feel. When on the other hand one sees only 

 a childish-looking farm-drudge knitting, a number 

 of greedy sheep feeding, and a rough dog watch- 

 ing them, where, one asks oneself in perplexity, 

 does the religious element come in ? That it is 

 to be found in the " Bergere " is however, un- 

 mistakable, and equally unmistakably was it to 

 be found in the copse this morning, though how 

 it got there, or who implanted it, I were rash 

 were I to attempt to explain. 



Assuredly man is by nature a devotional 

 creature, however little of the dogmatic may 

 mingle with his devotions. He may avert his 

 ear from the church-going bell, he may refuse 

 to label himself with the label of any particular 

 denomination, but it is only to be overtaken with 

 awe in the heart of a forest, and to fall on his 

 knees, as it were, in some green secluded spot 

 of the wilderness. The sense of something be- 

 nignant close at hand, of some pitying eye sur- 

 veying one, is so vivid at certain moments of 

 one's life that it actually needs a rough conscious 

 effort if one would shake it off. Even the 

 sense of the vastness of that arena upon which 

 our poor little drama is being played out, even 

 this habitual impression becomes less grimly 

 crushing at such moments than usual. What if 



