232 A GARDEN DIARY 
SEPTEMBER 4, 1900 
he toh LY people live fast in these days, even 
the very slowest of them! I find myself 
turning back of a morning to the thoughts of 
the Transvaal, and of the struggle still going on 
there, with the oddest sense of renewal ; as of one 
trying to rekindle dead fires, or to reawaken some 
set of well-nigh obliterated emotions. When did 
it begin, this war, which seems to have been going 
on throughout the greater part of one’s lifetime ? 
which the newspapers have again and again an- 
nounced to be just over, but with which they 
nevertheless manage to fill several columns every 
morning? It is perhaps a mere personal impres- 
sion, due to closer anxieties, but to myself the 
fears and perturbations of last spring seem often 
almost incredibly remote. There are moments 
when they appear to be as out of date for any 
practical purpose as the alarms that convulsed 
our grandfathers and grandmothers two genera- 
tions ago. E& pur st muove!/ It is still going on, 
this war of ours, and seems likely moreover, to 
