66 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



ties. If he could stand in front of you 

 and study yours while you told him where 

 you got it, and when, and why, and what 

 you paid for it, it was all he asked. He 

 grew in influence as he got older and had 

 a political job. He is distinguished by the 

 gorgeousness of his scarfs. None of us is 

 self-centered : we are results of the past ; 

 and I have vainly tried to imagine what 

 brought him about. 



Scarfs suggest color, again, and that 

 suggests art, and both recall me to the 

 yard, where I have been setting out petu- 

 nias, which are among the safest, steadiest, 

 and most remunerative of all bloomers. 

 But I wanted to say that what we call the 

 artistic sense is often but the feeling for 

 nature altered by generations of a society 

 that seeks its self-protection at the ex- 

 pense of normal impulse. Once meshed 

 in the house-staying habit, the victim, who 

 has already lost the fineness of his sense of 

 smell, the delicacy of his touch, and the 

 savage's quickness of sight, resolves to keep 

 his palate with high-seasoned appliances, 

 and to distinguish colors, anyhow, with his 



