THE CITY YARD 



your cigar, In relative security against the hun- 

 dred and fifty eyes at the back windows. Your 

 forest will require frequent trimming, for unless 

 you keep the vistas open and remorselessly check 

 the attempts of the lilacs to fill the whole yard, 

 you will presently have to fight for admission to 

 your own premises. A more serious objection is 

 that children, strangers, and Mary Ann, who is 

 a law unto herself, will by no means travel on the 

 path, for it is human nature, and especially Amer- 

 ican nature, and often a most excellent quality, 

 to go straight to a designated object, considering 

 grace and the neighbors not a whit; hence your 

 path will be much neglected, and your grass 

 much walked on. Even in parks, with police on 

 duty as exemplars and enforcers of taste, people 

 will take short cuts to save a bend. 



It Is, therefore, with hesitancy that I suggest 

 a still more radical but more conventional use of 

 the curve. It Is so completely artificial and 

 against likelihood that I would hardly admit It 

 here, were it not that I know people whose 

 houses are only thirty feet back from the street, 

 yet they must have a curved drive. In both direc- 

 tions, to the front door, and a porte-cochere for 

 31 



