IS^s FLLe «. Ma^r ^«rJ. 



len 



hesitated when confronted with a choice between a 

 new gown and — well, say the same amount .spent 

 in peonies, peach trees, roses and rhubarb plants. 

 No wonder the first woman gardener could only 

 afford the fig leaf; all her clothes money went for 

 anemones and more apple trees. 



One can only measure change by retrospection; 

 when a backward glance produces a finer content 

 with one's present state, then surely the spirit is not 

 retrograding. I'm sure I'm a reconstructed being 

 in more ways than one since I moved to the country, 

 especially in my attitude toward vegetables. Dur- 

 ing the first year I ignored the " sass patch," treated 

 it as a snob does the real toilers of this world. But 

 gradually lured by the sheer beauty of bejeweled- 

 by-dew cabbage, the fragance of the onion, I now 

 expend as much muscle on the vegetable kingdom 

 as I do on my roses, and, incidentally, I have become 

 a vegetarian. That's the only way to become one — 

 just because there are so many good vegetables, one 

 doesn't need to encourage the slaughter of beasts. 



And this kind of vegetarian, the accidental kind, 

 is not afflicted with ansmia; it is only the theories 

 of the professional vegetarian that makes him look 

 so bloodless. 



204 



