THE CITY YARD 



warmth that the grass has borrowed from the 

 summer; meek-eyed cattle with sweet breaths 

 shall return it to their masters in food and drink. 

 And the grass-blade has a power, that we have 

 not, to feed upon the ground. We of dainty- 

 stomach need that others shall live first, and give 

 their lives to us. It is, then, no less a moral law 

 than a law of nature that we shall fulfil destiny 

 by giving of ourselves for others, even like the 

 grass. We stand firmest and highest when we 

 stand alone, yet our service is for all, and accord- 

 ing as we stand apart we have the more fertility 

 to give. In this again we are as the grass. We 

 are not as if each were an entity; we are only 

 of the type; but as we increase, so shall the type 

 prevail. Like the grass, we must convert the 

 dark and hard to brightness. The lesson is some- 

 thing obvious, yet in heeding it we obey the law, 

 not merely of a conscience, but necessity. There- 

 fore, again, let there be at your doors a plenty 

 of grass for your eye and your inner understand- 

 ing to rest upon. 



It is a law In landscape-gardening that a path 

 Is to bend only to accommodate Itself to the lay 

 of the ground : to go around a knoll, or avoid a 

 35 



