.Tanuary, 1920 



G I. K A N T N OS IN B K F, CULT U R E 



27 



C 



ANOTHER 

 yoar! Right 

 luMi', for us 

 to take into our 

 lives and use for 

 our own best 

 p u r p s e s . An- 

 other new won- 

 derful year! An- 

 other sheet of 



paper to be written on. Another high ad- 

 venture to start. Another port to sail from. 

 Another hill to climb. Another trail to be 

 followed, unbla/.ed, no footprints on it. Call 

 it what vou will, make j'our own figure for 

 it ; it is here. It is here, whether we are 

 glad or sorry, here to be met and lived and 

 shaped into something as like our dream of 

 a year as our hearts and our wills can shape 

 it. Oh, let us make it into a thing of beau- 

 ty and of power! 



Everybody, you know, assumes that New 

 Year 's resolutions are entirely out of fash- 

 ion. It is quite the proper thing to smile at 

 the mere words, as at something utterly crude 

 or futile or old-fashioned. It is very up-to the- 

 minute to scorn all the simple old ways of 

 trying to better our own habits or manners or 

 speech, or the way we order our lives. Yet 

 often there is a strangely inspiring power in 

 the very thought of a new start; and we 

 would do well, perhaps, to cling to the fine 

 old custom of taking advantage of all the 

 beginning-times of life. Indeed, I often 

 feel that one of the best of all resolutions 

 is the resolve to notice and claim and take 

 full advantage of all these beginning-times 

 of life — every dawning morning, as it brings 

 its new, unguessed day; every new and 

 vivid week, breaking like a blossom out of 

 its Sunday; every fresh brave month; every 

 great, wide, wonderful door to a New Year. 

 On all these beginning-days, how wise that 

 we tighten our girded armor and sharpen 

 our spiritual weapons, to go out with new- 

 zeal against our old enemies the giants and 

 the dragons and the little foxes that spoil 

 the grapes, our ripening grapes of purpose 

 and character. For after all, there isn't 

 anything else worth while, if these things 

 aren 't done right. 



Everybody has one pet sin — one especial 

 weakness. Letting things come between 

 me and what I mean to do — is mine. (Prob- 

 ably the Editor could have guessed it! But 

 there are so many lovely things to come be- 

 tween.) Is confession good for the soul? 

 Then let me bare this day of mine, accepting 

 the reproaches of the successfully efficient, 

 while I vow my new vows and prepare for 

 my clean, fresh start. 



You see, to be very good, I should have 

 mailed this Sideline department yesterday. 

 I did not. So this morning I cleared the 

 decks early, uncovered my typewriter, and 

 just then, behold, two babies came floating 

 across the \nith of duty — one wee and soft, 

 in protecting blankets, the other rosy-cheek- 

 ed and romping ami imperious. Of course I 

 playeil with them (such a happy hour!) un- 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



LJ 



3 



Grace Allen 



LJ 



til their mothers 

 carried them 

 away. Then 

 there was some- 

 thing I wanted 

 to look up in 

 "The Manual of 

 Style," issued 

 by the Universi- 

 ty of Chicago 

 Press. It required about three minutes, but 

 you know pages have a way of turning in my 

 fingers, and I couldn't lay it down. How- 

 ever, as it is really nearly as dry as dust, it 

 didn't hold me long — probably not more 

 than an hour. Then followed a little spree 

 with Webster and a longer — much longer — 

 one with a borrowed volume of "Atlantic 

 Narratives." Then a truant thought sud- 

 denly landed squarely inside an old Plato, 

 long unopened, and there— the hours just 

 passed over. And at the last I fairly shut 

 my eyes, so as not to seem to notice how 

 Plato, as he slipped back into his accustom- 

 ed place, bowed, as it were, to Gilbert White 

 on the right and Samuel Johnson on the left. 

 I shut my itching fingers tight and pulled 

 them aw-ay quickly, going promptly back to 

 my desk. "But the day is practically gone," 

 I admitted sadly to the neglected typewriter, 

 "and no Sideline yet. Yet at that," with the 

 customary self-defense of the guilty, "the 

 things I have taken from it were something 

 more than herbs and apples." Herbs and 

 apples! What was the rest of that? That 

 ought to go into a January Sideline — it 

 surely ought — for all sideliners to recall, 

 when tempted to take from the fair days 

 to come any gifts less beautiful than the 

 best. So I picked up my Emerson and look- 

 ed for ' ' Days. ' ' One glance down the Table 

 of Contents showed that it was not in this 

 volume. That should have sufficed. But 

 the little foxes were in a most naughtily 

 nibbling mood, and one inspired page after 

 another held their reader till the shadows 

 fell. Later, after the lights were on and 

 the house was very still it flashed over me 

 that "Days" was a poem instead of an es- 

 say, and this fragment was quickly located: 

 "I * * * * 

 Forgot my morning wishes, liastily 

 Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day 

 Turned and departed silent. I, too late, 

 Under her solemn fillet .saw the scorn." 



Oh, if there be any other procrastinating 

 sideliner on the reading list of Gleanings, 

 any other who forgets his morning wishes 

 as the hooded, hyi:>ocrite Days pass by — 

 looking so ordinary and simple when they 

 are really so splendid and divine — do join 

 me in the vow to take hereafter not herbs 

 and apples merely, no, nor even food and 

 drink for the spirit when the spirit has 

 chosen to work and serve rather than to 

 feast; so that when our Days depart, silent, 

 ^^e may see under the solemn fillets some- 

 tliing other than scorn. 



Surely we need not be ashamed to make 

 one or two such honest, earnest New Year's 



