THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



rarely plucked. The lilac reaches to you its per- 

 fume, and the cherry tree its fruit in the suburbs and 

 main streets of Ithaca, N. Y., Cleveland, Ohio, and 

 Louisville, Ky. Why not? This is vastly more 

 human than cultivating your fine things behind 

 board fences, or stone walls, or even hedges. 

 Flower beds in the street are better than cows 

 and swine. We shall probably see, by and by, 

 all of our ugly, weed-bedraggled highways turned 

 into a great, continuous public garden, reaching 

 everywhere among the rich and the poor, and 

 binding all homes together with bands of beauty 

 and good- will. In one sense we are all one family, 

 and while we should develop well-defined indi- 

 viduality, we must remember what Emerson says, 

 that we can "make society out of nothing but 

 individuals" — all other people constitute masses. 

 In the country we must never get lost in indi- 

 vidual tastes and turn our independence into 

 idiosyncrasy. There is a social exclusiveness, but 

 there is an equally offensive unsocial seclusiveness. 

 The sense of remoteness from others is to many 

 intolerable; to others it is the controlling sentiment. 

 I have a neighbor who owns, but cannot occupy, 

 seventy acres, and he is constantly bewailing his 



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