42 A GARDEN DIARY 
conscious of the vandalism of trying to get rid of 
an object immeasurably more beautiful than any 
of the plants one thrusts it aside for. In the 
second place, there is a sense of absurdity and 
futility, which is strongly upon one all the time. 
Mrs. Partington, in her efforts at sweeping back 
the Atlantic Ocean with her broom, was hardly 
a more conspicuous instance of misplaced energy 
than such attempts to suppress and control the 
exuberant green waves, the abounding vitality, of 
our own magnificent, indomitable bracken. 
Even where humiliating struggles like these 
have ceased to be necessary, how slight an 
excrescence this whole business that we call 
ownership really is; how strong, how deeply 
rooted the state of things which it has momen- 
tarily superseded. Let the so-called owner relax 
his self-assertiveness for ever so short a period ; 
let him and his myrmidons depart for a while 
upon their travels, and how swiftly the whole 
fabric rushes remorselessly back to its original 
condition. And why not? What can be more 
absolutely to be expected? Nor need we even 
stop at the garden, the farm, the house, or any 
similar chattel. Even ourselves, sophisticated 
little creatures though we be, in how many ways 
we remain the accessories, rather than the masters, 
of our environment? For a time, especially in 
towns, we manage to conceal this truth from our- 
selves. We pretend that we have remodelled 
