A GARDEN DIARY 213 



JULY 28, 1900 



" I "HE last ten or twelve days have been 

 * different from any that I ever remember 

 before. Circumstances have made them so, 

 yet it has seemed as though there were some- 

 thing about themselves that has, as it were, 

 affected those circumstances. For one thing it 

 has been extraordinarily hot, so that we have 

 been thankful for every breath of air that has 

 travelled to us across the downs. The new little 

 water-lily pond has been most kindly, and has 

 contrived to produce an amazing illusion of cool- 

 ness, while the oaks in whose shadow it lies 

 have provided us with the reality of shade. We 

 two have sat day after day for hours beside it, 

 and the minutes have slipped along, like bubbles 

 upon some very slow stream. There is a strange 

 sense of unreality over everything ; a sense that 

 everything is very near its end. The hours of a 

 summer's day, and the years of a man's life 

 seem to be much the same thing, and the one 

 hardly longer than the other. The chimes from 



