THE AMATEUR GARDEN 



somebody, something, somehow, to put it into 

 his head — well — for example — to make a 

 garden? A garden, we will say, that should 

 win a prize, and — even though it failed to win 

 — should render him and his house and house- 

 hold more interesting to himself, his neighbors 

 and his town. 



He and his house seemed to be keeping the 

 Ten Commandments in a slouching sort of 

 way and we may even suppose they were out of 

 debt — money debt ; yet already they were an 

 unconscious menace to society; their wage- 

 earning powers had outgrown their wants. Out- 

 grown them not because the wages were too high 

 but because their wants were too low; were only 

 wants of the body, wants of the barrenest uncul- 

 ture; the inelastic wants. 



That is "my own invention," that phrase! 

 The bodily wants of a reptile are elastic. If an 

 alligator or a boa-constrictor catches a dog he 

 can swallow him whole and enjoy that one meal 

 in unriotous bliss for weeks. Thereafter if he 

 must put up with no more than a minnow or a 

 mouse he can do that for weeks in unriotous 



136 



