140 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



entertainment; but it is really one of 

 the most expensive. It is true that we 

 can all have front seats, and we do not 

 exactly need to dress for it as we do for 

 the opera; but the conditions under 

 which it is to be enjoyed are rather 

 dear. Among them I should name a 

 good suit of clothes, including some 

 trifling ornament, not including back 

 hair for one sex, or the parting of it in 

 the middle for the other. I should add 

 also a good dinner, well cooked and di 

 gestible ; and the cost of a fair educa 

 tion, extended, perhaps, through genera 

 tions in which sensibility and love of 

 beauty grew. What I mean is, that if 

 a man is hungry and naked, and half a 

 savage, or with the love of beauty un 

 developed in him, a sunset is thrown 

 away on him : so that it appears that the 

 conditions of the enjoyment of a sunset 

 are as costly as any thing in our civili 

 zation. 



