THE EARLY IDEALS 235 



and no markets; no one provides for us, or preserves 

 for us, save ourselves. Out of the summer's overplus, 

 we store with our own hands for winter; and nought 

 that we have not so stored shall we enjoy. No great 

 engines are there to haul tons of grain to us across 

 thousand-mile spaces, if our fields yield not their in- 

 crease. The lean years and the fat years are verily 

 lean and fat; and our granaries and bins and barrels 

 hold literally our living and our all. Both the linen 

 and the woolen cloth is homespun and home woven; 

 home brewed is the beer, home grown are all the roots 

 and herbs to be steeped into messes for the fevers and 

 distempers which, please Heaven! may pass us by. 

 Here are the industrious bees, warm within their hives, 

 where they have stored our sugar; indeed, there is no 

 end to the enumeration, and all that we possess we do 

 actually first produce, of a truth. 



For diversion and amusement we are almost as de- 

 pendent upon this same home establishment as for the 

 sterner necessities. We feast at our own table, on 

 our own ox and boar and fowl, we drink our homely, 

 pleasant beverages and smoke our own tobacco, and we 

 play the old fireside games; or from our twittering 

 spinets or grander tinkling harpsichords we draw the 

 polite little melodies of our delight; or perhaps we 

 broider dexterously at our frames, endless flocks of 

 birds and beasts and garlands of flowers as never were. 



