A GARDEN DIARY 227 
thin, lamentable, bleating of sheep floating up 
from the valley; all these set vibrating fibres 
within us which have their roots as far back in 
the history of the race as anything well can be. 
Our life of to-day, with all its crowded impedi- 
menta, tends at such moments to sink suddenly, 
and to disappear. We realise—if only during 
the duration of a lightning flash—that we are 
standing, not in the least upon any apex, merely 
upon some small peak on one of the sides of the 
great organic mountain. That we are looking 
at a scene which has witnessed the arrival of 
our race, as of other races, upon it, and which 
will assuredly one day witness its departure again. 
That all that we can discern is but, as it were, a 
few front streaks upon the surface of an ocean, 
rolling on without bourne or limit. And at that 
realisation the mind is apt to start, and to shiver 
instinctively, as before some yawning gulf, opening 
unexpectedly below the feet. 
Such little mental peaks afford, in truth, but 
a dizzy standing ground, and are best, perhaps 
for that reason, not ascended too often. Just as 
the trade of the astronomer is said to need a 
sound leaven of stolidity before it can be safely 
embarked upon, so only a very strong head can 
with safety peer long into a void, hardly less 
perturbing and intoxicating than that into which 
it is his business to pry. Those capricious little 
particles, upon which all our comfort depends, 
