224 A GARDEN DIARY 



AUGUST 10, 1900 



T IFE ; Life the indomitable, the multifarious; 

 <*-** Life, as it rises in the scale, becoming con- 

 scious of itself the thought of this recurs again 

 and again to one's mind, and each time with a 

 greater sense of power, and of a sort of conso- 

 lation. What limit need be assigned, one asks 

 oneself, to its capabilities, to the endless trans- 

 formations, to the possibilities, as yet unguessed 

 at, which may have been destined for it by its 

 Inventor from the beginning of things? If the 

 mere personal consciousness, the precarious per- 

 sonal life, is rarely without an element of dis- 

 comfort, in this larger sense that personal life all 

 but disappears, and with the loss of it comes 

 not perhaps actual joy, that could hardly be 

 looked for but at least a great exhilaration, 

 an extraordinary sense of width, of serenity, 

 and of detachment. 



As the mind descends deeper and deeper into 

 that serene abyss it seems to shake itself free for 

 the time being from all that confused, battling, 



