22 MORE POT-POURRI 



O wad some pow'rtlie 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 is lower, and no cypresses point upwards. The 

 moral to me is quite clear: Gardeners should only go 

 away from home to learn, not to see how beautiful the 

 world is elsewhere without any gardens at all, the 

 science of life being to make the best of what we have 

 to our hand, not to pine for what we have not. 



September 5th. — The dryness continues, and we wait 

 in vain for rain. The weather makes us doubly appre- 

 ciate the small square of cool water just in front of the 

 dining-room window, and the. pleasure it seems to bring 

 to bird and insect. Great fat thrushes splash them- 

 selves in the shallow edges specially prepared for them 

 with big stones, as they seem much afraid of deep 

 water. Two of us were sitting at early breakfast, when 

 my companion said to me in a subdued voice, ' Look 

 there ! ' I saw, perched on a hanging branch of the 

 rose growing on the Pergola, the most beautiful King- 

 fisher. His blue wings flashed in the sunshine, and, 

 turning his red breast, it glowed like that of a tropical 

 bird. In a few seconds he flew away. I have never 

 before seen a Kingfisher in this dry garden, and I can 

 only account for it, as we are more than a mile from the 

 river, by something peculiar in the season and his being 

 attracted, in his search for food, by the gold-fish in my 

 little fountain. A friend told me that the same thing 

 happened in her garden, and that the Kingfisher, never 

 seen before, beat himself against the glass window. 



