242 A GARDEN DIARY 



SEPTEMBER n, 1900 



OO one ends. Yet, even in the very act of 

 ^ ending, qualms arise. Thinking of what 

 lies under one's hand, no longer as a sheaf 

 of familiar manuscript, but as a full-blown book, 

 printed, bound, stitched, and a' the lave o' it, 

 misgivings awake, and are lively. Only yester- 

 day I sounded the praises of the diary, and I 

 do so still; yet the manifest destiny of every 

 diary is to live a life of absolute seclusion, and, 

 when it has served its turn, to feed the fire. It 

 is true that one may murmur something to 

 oneself about "subjective"; "subjective forms 

 of literature," but the words ring hollow, and 

 have little validity. In a well-known passage 

 Carlyle has described a visit which he paid 

 to the Sage of Highgate, whom he found 

 sitting in his Dodona oak grove otherwise 

 Mr. Oilman's house and garden " as a kind of 

 Magus, girt in mystery and enigma." " I still 

 recollect," Carlyle says, " his ' object,' and ' sub- 

 ject,' and how he sang and snuffled them into 



