A GARDEN DIARY 235 



tered no yachts, nursed no wounded, sung no 

 war songs, or even lowest of all the efforts of 

 patriotism so much as composed any ! Who 

 have remained at home the whole time ; tending 

 your own gardens, culling your own fancies, and 

 sorrowing over your own sorrows. What right 

 have such as you idlers, cumberers, that you 

 are! so much as to mention the word "war" 

 at all? 



" Very true," the other self answers submis- 

 sively. And yet again, he reflects, as he looks 

 around him, is it not, after all, just such little 

 plots as these that the earthquake of battle has 

 this year shaken the most fiercely ? Is it not 

 such gardens as these not this one perhaps, 

 but others almost identical ; flowery places, where 

 the robins peck about, and where no hostile foot 

 has ever trod is it not against these that the 

 harshest blows have been struck, where the 

 cruellest wounds have been received ? Quick, 

 quick, as in a dream, fancy conjures up a vision 

 a procession, rather floating along upon the 

 soft bands of autumn sunshine ; a procession of 

 mothers, of sisters, of betrothed ones, of wives. 

 As each in turn passes by memory evokes the 

 face, or the faces, that belong to it ; then turns 

 to linger last and longest with the mothers. Ah, 

 those mothers ! God's pity, above all others, rest 

 this year with the mothers. For whom hope can 

 never be anything again but a delusive word ; for 



