So NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



animal. It does not do to be too civilized. 

 Extremes meet. The meeting-place of 

 high culture and abject poverty are the 

 asylum and the graveyard. Society tells 

 us that we are helpless without civilization. 

 Yes ; it has made us so. Left alone from 

 birth, if we did not starve early we should 

 be " more destitute than a brute," espe- 

 cially as we are without any of the wings, 

 claws, teeth, hair, feathers, and prehensile 

 tails that put the eagle, the tiger, the mon- 

 key above us in the contest with nature. 

 Do we not, then, as we get older and real- 

 ize our loss, want to begin over again, and 

 recover some of these brute advantages ? 



But, ah ! which one of our acquired ben- 

 efits are we willing to give up for more 

 muscle, or for budding wings? The habit 

 of house-building ? The art of cookery ? 

 The daily paper ? Hm ! Something of 

 our talk ? Some of that vexing and va- 

 riant fluid we call mind ? Or the gift 

 of imagination ? Not the last, I think. 

 That is the utmost of our evolution. It is 

 the agency that lets us be other, greater, 

 happier than we are. Life in the coun- 



