e of a definite task his path in this direction led through
darkness.

But it was not until after several suggestions and many conversations
that light was found. The friend so pressingly appealed to returned to
London, where he was stern in rejecting several projects, hotly flung at
his head and then coldly abandoned. A study of the Empress Maria
Theresa, suggested by a feverish perusal of Pechler, was the latest and
least attractive of these. Lord Redesdale then frankly demanded that a
subject should be found for him. "You have brought this upon yourself,"
he said, "by encouraging me to write." What might prove the scheme of a
very pleasant book then occurred to me, and I suggested to the fiery and
impatient author, who had by this time retired for good to Batsford,
that he should compose a volume of essays dealing with things in
general, but bound together by a constantly repeated reference to his
wild garden of bamboos and the Buddha in his secret grove. The author
was to suppose himself seated with a friend on the terrace at the top of
the garden, and to let the idea of the bamboo run through the whole
tissue of reflections and reminiscences like an emerald thread. Lord
Redesdale was enchanted, and the idea took fire at once. He replied:--

"You are Orpheus, with his lute moving the rocks and stones! I
shall work all my conceits into your plan, and am now proceeding to
my garden shrine to meditate on it. I will try to make a picture of
the VELUVANA, the bamboo-garden which was the first Vikara or
monastery of Buddha and his disciples. There I will sit, and,
looking on the great statue of Buddha in meditation, I shall begin
to arrange all sorts of wild imaginings which may come into my
crazy brain."

In this way was started the book, of which, alas! only such fragments
were composed as form the earlier part of the volume published after his
death. It is, however, right to point out that for the too-brief
remainder of his life Lord Redesdale was eagerly set on the scheme of
which a hint has just been given. The _Veluvana_ was to be the crowning
production of his literary life, and it was to sum up the wisdom of the
East and the gaiety of the West. He spoke of it incessantly, in letters
and conversation. "That will do to go into _Veluvana_," was his cry when
he met with anything rare or strange. For instance, on September 15th,
1915, he wrote to me:--

"To-day, all of a