A GARDEN DIARY 167 
in the heart of one of our stunted oaks. I am 
ashamed to confess the intense, the childish 
satisfaction I found this morning in turning our 
new tap for the first time, and seeing the water 
gush out in one free bound, as if glad of its 
escape ; looking as clear too, as if newly come 
from the heart of a glacier, or upon its way 
to the edge of some Atlantic cliff, there to be 
caught by the wind, as I have often seen it 
caught, and sent back high overhead, in one 
dancing, rainbow-coloured feather of light. 
“Take you at your commonest, at your ugliest, 
and what a lovely thing you are!” I thought, 
as I let the tap run for a few minutes, and stood 
to watch the water beginning to create little rills 
and runnels for itself, and to feed the dry copse, 
the dead leaves, brambles, withered bracken, 
everything within reach, with the first full rush 
of its benevolence. 
I do not know that I am more given than other 
people to proclaiming aloud that I have too many 
blessings ; that Nature has been too generous, and 
too bountiful in her benefits on my behalf. Now 
and then however it has occurred to me to ask 
myself what I—or, for that matter, other people 
—have done to deserve this free unstinted gift of 
clear, pure water. In and out of our houses; 
through our pipes and conduits; into all our 
tubs and washhand basins, it flows and flows 
continually, and we take it as an absolute matter 
