244 A GARDEN DIARY 



not entirely a matter of egotism and of intro- 

 spection, of fun, and of frolic, though it may 

 appear to the non-diarist to be. What a nice 

 innocent-looking book it seems, when its spaces 

 are all blank, and the days they refer to are not 

 yet born ! yet such a book may come to look 

 like a mere fragment of malicious destiny, bound 

 in calf or calico. Holding it in his hands the 

 would-be diarist turns the leaves over one by 

 one with a smile. How will this, and this, and 

 this space be filled up ? he wonders. What odd 

 little adventures will they have to record ? What 

 absurdities of his own, or of others, to recount ? 

 What books read ? what expeditions made ? 

 what trees or shrubs planted ? So he sets 

 jauntily forth on his self-appointed task, to be 



met by What ? A thought to give the 



lightest pause. 



And yet, and yet. Let the very worst come 

 to pass that can come to pass, even so an atti- 

 tude of mere unmitigated despair hardly befits 

 fast disappearing mortals, whose breath is in 

 their nostrils. Looking backwards may seem 

 all gloom and pain, and looking forward no 

 better, possibly rather worse, and yet assuredly 

 it is not all gloom, or all pain. Enchanting 

 things spring up by thousands in the ugliest of 

 clefts, and the barest of trees may serve as a 

 perch for some winter-singing robin. Sorrow 

 itself, carried out into the open air, under the 



