COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING 239 



faint against the horizon two village spires, two 

 Congregational spires, once one, that divided and 

 fell and rose again on opposite sides of the village 

 street. I often look away at the spires. And I 

 as often think of the many sweet trees that wave 

 between me and those tapering steeples, where 

 they look up to worship toward the sky, and look 

 down to scowl across the street. 



Any lover of the city could live as far out as 

 this. I have no quarrel with the city as a place 

 to work in. Cities are as necessary as wheat-fields 

 and as lovely, too — from twenty miles away, 

 or from Westminster Bridge at daybreak. The 

 city is as a head to the body, the nervous centre 

 where the multitudinous sensations are organized 

 and directed, where the multitudinous and inter- 

 related interests of the round world are directed. 

 The city is necessary; city work is necessary; 

 but less and less is city living necessary. 



It is less and less possible also. New York City 

 — the length and breadth of Manhattan — and 

 Boston, from the Fenway in three directions to 

 the water-front, are as unfit for a child to grow 

 up in as the basement floor of a china store tor a 

 calf. There might be hay enough on such a floor 



