A GARDEN DIARY 73 
The wisdom of the ages has hitherto declined to 
answer that question, a fact which probably proves 
its wisdom. Better or not, one thing is at least 
certain, and that is that they are extremely different. 
“Men descend to meet,” says Emerson, and he 
may be right. I am inclined myself however to 
think that that profundity, that peculiar mental 
greatness of which, like others, I am perfectly 
conscious when I am alone, is less a solid than a 
gaseous greatness ; a sort of exaltation, dependent 
for the most part upon the fact of there being 
no one to contradict me. We are all of us at 
all times microcosms, but never are we .so com- 
pletely microcosms as when we are quite by 
ourselves. Then we seem to swell into a per- 
fectly multitudinous host, all the members of 
which exhibit a singular unanimity, and moreover 
a touching desire to endorse our own views, how- 
ever often these may contradict one another! 
Like many other honest-minded civilians, my 
thoughts have of late been considerably taken up 
with schemes of amateur strategy. The plans of 
campaign that I have formulated in the course 
of the last two months would have puzzled 
Von Moltke, and might even have gone far to 
surprise Napoleon! If I have not forwarded 
any of them to our Generals in South Africa it 
has been mainly because I felt that it might be 
kinder to allow them to go on in their own way 
without any assistance of mine. I heard lately 
