A GARDEN DIARY 243 



' om-m-mject ' and 'sum-m-mject,' with a kind 

 of solemn shake or quaver, as he rolled along." 

 The diarist need not necessarily roll along, and 

 has no pretensions certainly to be called a sage, 

 yet he too is apt now and again to murmur 

 "sum-m-mject," "sum-m-mjective," with a sound 

 that even in his own ears rather resembles 

 that of some bumble-bee upon a summer's 

 morning ; extremely self-important, that is to 

 say, but not particularly lucid. It is true that 

 so far as self-importance is concerned he stands 

 absolutely excused, seeing that egotism is his 

 profession. To cease to be egotistic is to cease 

 to be a diarist altogether. This is as clear as 

 it is satisfactory, but it can hardly be said to 

 meet the point. There is nothing odd, of course, 

 about a man or a woman being confidential with 

 himself or herself; it is when they proceed to 

 drop their confidences into other, and less in- 

 dulgent ears, that the oddity begins. 



There are moreover seasons when such out- 

 pourings seem even less appropriate than others, 

 and this year September to September ap- 

 pears, looking back, to be one of these. It 

 has been a black, a despairingly black, twelve 

 months for thousands ; how black, how despair- 

 ing, few of those thousands would have credited 

 when it began. Amongst those incredulous ones, 

 though on somewhat different grounds, the diarist 

 might have been reckoned. Diary -keeping is 



