ich dwells in my servants--girls whose one idea of happiness
is to live in a town where there are others of their sort with whom to
drink beer and dance on Sunday afternoons. The passion for being for
ever with one's fellows, and the fear of being left for a few hours
alone, is to me wholly incomprehensible. I can entertain myself quite
well for weeks together, hardly aware, except for the pervading peace,
that I have been alone at all. Not but what I like to have people
staying with me for a few days, or even for a few weeks, should they be
as anspruchslos as I am myself, and content with simple joys; only, any
one who comes here and would be happy must have something in him; if he
be a mere blank creature, empty of head and heart, he will very probably
find it dull. I should like my house to be often full if I could find
people capable of enjoying themselves. They should be welcomed and sped
with equal heartiness; for truth compels me to confess that, though it
pleases me to see them come, it pleases me just as much to see them go.

On some very specially divine days, like today, I have actually longed
for some one else to be here to enjoy the beauty with me. There has been
rain in the night, and the whole garden seems to be singing--not the
untiring birds only, but the vigorous plants, the happy grass and trees,
the lilac bushes--oh, those lilac bushes! They are all out to-day, and
the garden is drenched with the scent. I have brought in armfuls, the
picking is such a delight, and every pot and bowl and tub in the house
is filled with purple glory, and the servants think there is going to be
a party and are extra nimble, and I go from room to room gazing at the
sweetness, and the windows are all flung open so as to join the scent
within to the scent without; and the servants gradually discover that
there is no party, and wonder why the house should be filled with
flowers for one woman by herself, and I long more and more for a kindred
spirit--it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself--but
kindred spirits are so very, very rare; I might almost as well cry
for the moon. It is true that my garden is full of friends, only they
are--dumb.

June 3rd.--This is such an out-of-the-way corner of the world that
it requires quite unusual energy to get here at all, and I am thus
delivered from casual callers; while, on the other hand, people I love,
or people who love me, which is much the same thing, are not lik