A GARDEN DIARY 197 
standing with his hat off in the middle of a field, 
in the company of a woman, who clasps her hands, 
and looks down, one knows what one is expected 
to feel. When on the other hand one sees only 
a childish-looking farm-drudge knitting, a number 
of greedy sheep feeding, and a rough dog watch- 
ing them, where, one asks oneself in perplexity, 
does the religious element come in? That it is 
to be found in the “ Bergére” is however, un- 
mistakable, and equally unmistakably was it to 
be found in the copse this morning, though how 
it got there, or who implanted it, I were rash 
were I to attempt to explain. 
Assuredly man is by nature a devotional 
creature, however little of the dogmatic may 
mingle with his devotions. He may avert his 
ear from the church-going bell, he may refuse 
to label himself with the label of any particular 
denomination, but it is only to be overtaken with 
awe in the heart of a forest, and to fall on his 
knees, as it were, in some green secluded spot 
of the wilderness. The sense of something be- 
nignant close at hand, of some pitying eye sur- 
veying one, is so vivid at certain moments of 
one’s life that it actually needs a rough conscious 
effort if one would shake it off. Even the 
sense of the vastness of that arena upon which 
our poor little drama is being played out, even 
this habitual impression becomes less grimly 
crushing at such moments than usual. What if 
