DECEMBER 145 



roofed enough to prevent the rain-water collecting in it. 

 They seem to have remembered the feeding from last 

 year, as they began at the piece of suet at once. On the 

 table below I used to put a basin to hold crumbs and 

 scraps from meals rice, milk, anything almost, for the 

 other birds who will not eat either the fat or the cocoanut. 

 But I found this was such a great temptation to the cats 

 and dogs of the establishment, who became most extra- 

 ordinarily acrobatic in the methods by which they got 

 on to the table, that I had to devise wiring the saucer of 

 a flower-pot and so hanging it on to the most extended 

 branch, out of reach of the cleverest of Miss Pussies. 

 If once it freezes very hard, I put out bowls of tepid 

 water. This the birds much appreciate. 



December 23rd. I have been out for a walk long after 

 dark or, rather, long after sunset, for the moon was 

 shining bright in the cold indigo sky. At all times of 

 year walking by moonlight gives me exquisite delight. 

 Is it because I have done it so rarely, or because of the 

 great beauty and mystery of it all ? I went along our high 

 road, the road along which Nelson travelled to Portsmouth 

 on his way to Trafalgar, never to return. This evening it 

 shone white and dry in the moonlight, and the tall black 

 telegraph-poles double the height and strength of those 

 they replaced a few years ago, and which I have always 

 hated for their aggressive size by daylight in the winter 

 moonlight only seemed to me straight and strong, and as 

 if proud to support that wonderful network of wires which 

 now encompasses the entire globe, annihilating time and 

 making the far and the near as one, ceaselessly carrying 

 those messages of happiness and despair, life and death, 

 which in the space of a moment, in the opening of an 

 envelope, bring sorrow or joy to many a home. Some- 

 thing of the mystery of it all the wires sang to me 

 to-night, with JEolian sounds different from any I have 



