208 A GARDEN DIARY 
suppose it was inevitable that it should do. Never- 
theless, the tragedy as a tragedy remains, and if 
anything seems to be deepening daily. The 
newspapers certainly do nothing to minimise it ; 
perhaps they would say that it was hardly their 
province to do so! Such headings, however, as 
‘The Chinese Cawnpore!” ‘“ Last shots reserved 
for the women!” ‘White children carried on 
spears!” seem to be rather more than it is their 
absolute duty to offer to their readers! As 
regards hope, no one appears to have any left, so 
that it seems mere optimism to cherish any. A 
ray reached us two days ago from our neighbour 
S. B., who had heard of a reassuring telegram 
from someone in Sir R. Hart’s employment in 
Pekin. No such gleam, however, seems to have 
travelled down to the murky depths of our news- 
papers, so that one can only fear that there must 
be some mistake. 
It is with a sort of angry helplessness, mixed 
with an instinctive feeling of self-defence, that 
one turns from such accumulated, such carefully 
elaborated horrors, and tries to forget them 
in whatever little pursuit happens to lie nearest 
to one’s hand. It is not particularly creditable 
to one’s humanity that one should succeed in 
doing so, and there is no denying that one’s 
attitude is essentially that of a kitten, or other 
small Unreasonable, which runs after its ball, 
though disaster may be hovering, or conflagration 
