THE PRIVATE GARDEN 



patience. In a spring in one of our Northamp- 

 ton gardens I saw a catfish swallow a frog so 

 big that the hind toes stuck out of the devourer's 

 mouth for four days; but they went in at last, 

 and the fish, in his fishy fashion, from start to 

 finish was happy. He was never demoralized. 

 It is not so with us. We cannot much distend 

 or contract our purely physical needs. Espe- 

 cially is any oversupply of them mischievous. 

 They have not the reptilian elasticity. Day by 

 day they must have just enough. But the civ- 

 ilized man has spiritual wants and they are as 

 elastic as air. 



A home is a house well filled with these elastic 

 wants. Home-culture is getting such wants into 

 households — not merely into single individuals 

 — that lack them. What makes a man rich ? 

 Is the term merely comparative? Not merely. 

 To be rich is to have, beyond the demands of 

 our bodily needs, abundant means to supply 

 our spiritual wants. To possess more material 

 resources than we can or will use or bestow to 

 the spiritual advantage of ourselves and others 

 is to be perilously rich, whether we belong to a 



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