A GARDEN DIARY 225 
disturbing sea in which its daily lot is cast. As 
that downward course continues, all that apper- 
tains to the surface becomes more and more 
dreamlike, as it might to a diver, and the mind 
widens and strengthens insensibly with each 
descending fathom. “Life” is indeed a marvel- 
lous shibboleth ; a spell that unlocks innumerable 
doors ; a word of varied and manifold meanings. 
Merely to write it down, merely to utter it, seems 
to clear the atmosphere. Mental fogs of all 
kinds at that touch roll up their dingy tents, 
and depart. An impression of morning—fresh, 
imperishable morning—hovers around it; youth, 
health, fecundity, vigour belong to it. All the 
winds of Spring—“‘driving sweet buds, like flocks 
to feed in air’—rush after it, and fan it on its 
course. The sense of the good green earth, and 
of all those good green things that belong to 
it, pours in a stream of joy through even the 
dreariest veins. ‘And if one little planet is able 
to show it in this inexhaustible profusion, what 
of all’ the other planets?” one thinks, ‘What 
of those countless other worlds, all belonging to 
the same great plan; all built and upheld by the 
same architectonic hand; all strung, as it were, 
upon one great string, and vibrating eternally to 
a single immortal touch ?” 
