Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
but I saw some had been shorn and, looking like sheep 
out of a toyshop, were spreading themselves over the fields 
beyond the river. The purple and white Lilac is almost 
out ; a few days warm sun will bring the flowers forward. 
It is curious we should use the Persian name for it, Lilag , 
scarcely altered. The French Lilas and Italian Lila is 
almost the same too; so is the Spanish Lila. The 
German name is Spanische Flieder. The Leopard’s-bane 
( Doronicum ) is beginning to star the wood with its golden 
stars. It is said to be a desperate poison, and gets its 
name from having been used formerly to poison wild beasts, 
a use to which it is not very likely to be put in England. 
Panther-bane is another old name for it. The French name 
is Mort aux P anther es. Ben Jonson, in his “ Masque of 
Quenes,” mentions Leopard’s-bane or Doronicum , spelling 
it, however, Libbard, the same quaint spelling used by 
Shakespeare. 
May 25.— A fairly fine day but cold, with an easterly 
wind. I can never feel in sympathy with Kingsley’s praise 
of the East-wind. Rather would I sing 
When the wind is in the East, ’tis neither good for man nor beast. 
The Nettles seem the only things which flourish apace, and 
do not appear to mind the backwardness of the season. 
And yet such weather has not been known for upwards of 
thirty years. The Spring vegetables are so few and small, 
I should think seriously of trying to boil young Nettles, but 
that I fear no cook would consent to cook them, and 
I very much doubt finding any one to eat them when 
cooked. Even Soyer tried in vain, I believe, to make 
people see the excellence of young Nettles as a dinner dish. 
It is curious what odd romance and fancies there are about 
the apparently prosaic Kailyard, unsuspected, I imagine, by 
most people. For instance, the homely Onion used to be 
an object of worship by the Egyptians somewhere about 
2000 b . c ., probably for its virtues. Even now it is some- 
times recommended as a cure for divers maladies — a roast 
onion in the ear for earache, and for deafness the juice, 
while to dream of onions warns one of “ Strife in Thy 
146 
