196 A GARDEN DIARY 
May 26, 1900 
HAT Nature is cruel is not to be denied; 
the evidences of that cruelty are written 
out large and red in every woodland, under 
every hedgerow. That she can be also un- 
accountably pitiful, or at all events take pains 
to appear so, is fortunately equally true, and 
it is a truth that at times comes very near 
to the heart. This morning at a very early 
hour there was a tenderness, a kind of hover- 
ing serenity over everything, that appealed to 
one like a benediction. The air itself seemed 
changed ; sanctified. The familiar little paths 
one walked along were like the approaches to 
some as yet invisible Temple. 
There are certain pictures of Jean Francois 
Millet’s in which this quality of sanctity is the 
first thing that strikes one, the more so that 
the obviously religious element is conspicuously 
absent from them. His “Angelus” has always 
seemed to me a poorer composition in this re- 
spect than some others. When one sees a man 
