SPRING 63 



knows what food for sight and stomach 

 they might pay us with ? For every plant 

 was a weed once. Yet I more incline to 

 fancy that the fed weed would sicken in 

 disgust and shame at being thus taken for 

 something desirable, and would peak and 

 pine and shrink into the earth. The skunk- 

 cabbage I bought of a sidewalk fakir sim- 

 ply refused to stay alive in the yard. He 

 had hurt its feelings, maybe, by calling it 

 an Egyptian water-lily. But with planting 

 to do, we cannot stop to guess what the 

 burdock and the ragweed might come to. 

 We slash them down, and know that their 

 brothers and sisters will be up next week. 

 Still, this weeding takes us into the open, 

 and makes the flowers so much the more 

 precious in that they have been fought for. 

 No doubt it is better that we should have 

 nothing as we want it. That enables us to 

 enjoy the wakeful emotion of surprise. It 

 likewise incites us to effort, and the effort- 

 less man is stagnant, useless, decadent. 



Did a man ever plant a thing a seed 

 or an idea that he did not watch to see 

 it come up ? He must be a freak, or very 



