SEPTEMBER 21 



grow fonder.' This is not my case under any circum- 

 stances, and especially not with my little home and 

 garden. The more I live here, the more I tend and 

 cherish it ; the more pains I bestow upon it, the more I 

 love it. 



When I am urged to travel and change, I only feel 

 that I agree with Mr. Watson in these lines : 



Nay, bid me not my cares to leave, 

 Who cannot from their shadow flee. 



I do but win a short reprieve, 

 'Scaping to pleasure and to thee. 



I may at best a moment's grace, 



And grant of liberty, obtain ; 

 Eespited for a little space, 



To go back into bonds again. 



After being away for only a short time I come back 

 with the keenest excitement. But when I have been 

 away for some long time and got interested in other 

 things, I come back in an ungardening mood, have forgot- 

 ten all the horticultural names, and if the time of year is 

 unfavourable I see, too clearly, nothing but the faults, 

 and have a much too direct answer to Burns's prayer in 

 the last verse of his queer little poem, ' To a Louse, on 

 seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church ' : 



wad some pow'r the giftie gi'e us 

 To see oursels as others see us ! 

 It wad frae monie a blunder free us 



And foolish notion : 

 What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 



And ev'n Devotion ! 



I love what I am with, but with me, alas ! les absents 

 ont toujours tort, and for weeks I had been used to greater 

 beauties and wider interests. Here the dome of heaven 



