MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 79 



straggled off into the air in a wanton 

 manner; but more than half of them 

 went galivanting off to the neighboring 

 grape^- trellis, and wound their tendrils 

 with the tendrils of the grape, with a 

 disregard of the proprieties of life 

 which is a satire upon human nature. 

 And the grape is morally no better. I 

 think the ancients, who were not 

 troubled with the recondite mystery of 

 protoplasm, were right in the mythic 

 union of Bacchus and Venus. 



Talk about the Darwinian theory of 

 development, and the principle of 

 natural selection ! I should like to see a 

 garden let to run in accordance with it. 

 If I had left my vegetables and weeds 

 to a free fight, in which the strongest 

 specimens only should come to maturi 

 ty, and the weaker go to the wall, I can 

 clearly see that I should have had a pret 

 ty mess of it It would have been a scene 



