May 26, 1900
THAT Nature is cruel is not to be denied; the evidences of that cruelty are written out large and red in every woodland, under every hedgerow. That she can be also unaccountably pitiful, or at all events take pains to appear so, is fortunately equally true, and it is a truth that at times comes very near to the heart. This morning at a very early hour there was a tenderness, a kind of hovering serenity over everything, that appealed to one like a benediction. The air itself seemed changed; sanctified. The familiar little paths one walked along were like the approaches to some as yet invisible Temple.
There are certain pictures of Jean Francois Millet’s in which this quality of sanctity is the first thing that strikes one, the more so that the obviously religious element is conspicuously absent from them. His “Angelus” has always seemed to me a poorer composition in this respect than some others. When one sees a man standing with his hat off in the middle of a field, in the company of a woman, who clasps her hands, and looks down, one knows what one is expected to feel. When on the other hand one sees only a childish-looking farm-drudge knitting, a number of greedy sheep feeding, and a rough dog watching them, where, one asks oneself in perplexity, does the religious element come in? That it is to be found in the “Bergère” is however, unmistakable, and equally unmistakably was it to be found in the copse this morning, though how it got there, or who implanted it, I were rash were I to attempt to explain.
Assuredly man is by nature a devotional creature, however little of the dogmatic may mingle with his devotions. He may avert his ear from the church-going bell, he may refuse to label himself with the label of any particular denomination, but it is only to be overtaken with awe in the heart of a forest, and to fall on his knees, as it were, in some green secluded spot of the wilderness. The sense of something benignant close at hand, of some pitying eye surveying one, is so vivid at certain moments of one’s life that it actually needs a rough conscious effort if one would shake it off. Even the sense of the vastness of that arena upon which our poor little drama is being played out, even this habitual impression becomes less grimly crushing at such moments than usual. What if it is colossal, one says to oneself, and what if, as compared to it, ourselves and our troubles are infinitesimal? what if they count no more in the scheme of things than do the afflictions of a broken-legged mouse, or of a crushed beetle? Very well; be it so. The mouse and the beetle have, after all, each their allotted place in that scheme. Nay for aught we know to the contrary, each may have its own incalculable hour; each may be susceptible of the same profound, if intangible, consolation.
June 2, 1900
THE revolving year has brought us back at last to June. Here is June, and here are all the June flowers. If June were only always really June, and if our hearts could always keep time to its weather, then were earth paradise, and any remoter one might be relegated to the remotest of Greek kalends. June however is by no means invariably June, while as for our hearts they are like our eyes, which have a fashion of blinking sometimes at the light, as those of owls are reported to do, preferring their own shadowy places, and the night, which at least brings kindly dreams. Yet are kindly dreams, it may be asked, really the kindliest, seeing that we wake from them, and know that they are false? Are not ugly dreams, are not even terrible ones, better, seeing that we wake from them, and say to ourselves that matters, after all, are not quite so bad as that? It is a question, and, like many questions, a good deal easier asked than answered.
“If there were dreams to sell,
Pleasant, and sad as well,
And the crier rang his bell,
Which would you buy?”
It is not the time, however, now for dreams, or for dream thoughts. It is nine o’clock in the morning, and everybody ought therefore to be wide awake and smiling. The garden at all events is performing its duty in both these respects, and seems, moreover, to be making encouraging little signals, like some humble but rather impatient suitor, who wishes to observe that he has really been waiting a long time, and deserves a little attention. Perhaps it does. Perhaps, seeing that it is there, and that we are here, it ought not to fare worse at our hands than our own dull bodies, which have to be clothed and fed, put to bed, and taken up again, whatever the less material portion may be feeling at the time. Here on my table I see is a list of some of our latest seedlings. They are not alpines this time, only common border plants, with a sprinkling of candidates for naturalisation, of which this copse can absorb almost any amount, so long as they are of the right sort. It is not a long list, and will not therefore take very long to transcribe.
Here it is:-