58 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



ever be ; only it is as tiny as a chatelaine 

 ornament. Maize and some other things 

 show the same precocity. This confirmation 

 of the theologic theory is startling, and sets 

 me meditating upon the moral possibilities 

 of my garden. I may find in it yet the 

 cosmic egg. 



And, speaking of moral things, I am half 

 determined to petition the Oecumenical 

 Council to issue a bull of excommunication 

 against " pusley." Of all the forms which 

 " error " has taken in this world, I think 

 that is about the worst. In the Middle 

 Ages the monks in St. Bernard's ascetic 

 community at Clairvaux excommunicated a 

 vineyard which a less rigid monk had planted 

 near, so that it bore nothing. In 1120 a 

 bishop of Laon excommunicated the cater- 

 pillars in his diocese ; and the following year 

 St. Bernard excommunicated the flies in the 

 Monastery of Foigny ; and in 1510 the ec- 

 clesiastical court pronounced the dread sen- 

 tence against the rats of Autun, Macon, and 

 Lyons. "These examples are sufficient pre- 



