40 
House & Garden 
A COMMENTARY ON FIVE LINES 
TN one of his poems ^Matthew Arnold writes— 
“Is it so small a thing 
To have enjoy'd the sun. . . .?” 
Then he goes on to say that this benefit from the high gods is not to be 
scorned nor bartered for some promise of future bliss. To have enjoyed 
the sun is a tremendous experience, fraught with vast potentialities for 
delight and the healing of many ills. 
Because they have so much of it, people who live in the country may 
not appreciate sunlight. Because they know it more by hearsay than 
b}’ actual experience, people who live in the city either take the sun as 
a matter of course, a thing too obvious to think about, or else they forget 
it altogether. Once on a day people worshipped the sun. It would 
help us all—country folk and city dwellers alike—if we accjuired some 
of that respect for sunlight. 
Scientists may say this or that about the sun, they may agree or 
disagree with Einstein’s theory of light, but the common, everyday 
people are satisfied with the simple fact 
that sunlight is healing, that it breeds 
life, that it is the source of much . 
beauty. These things suffice ■— the 
warmth of the sun on a body tired and 
wracked with a city's nervous energy, 
the drawing up of seedling and blos¬ 
som to the light, the splashes of color 
and shade on a fagade or across a lawn. 
These are not to be despised. It is no 
small thing to have enjoyed the sun. 
T 
HE next line of the poem says 
that it is no small thing 
“To have lived light in the spring.” 
Vhich makes us believe that, for all his 
dour countenance, dislike of America 
and disbelief in miracles, Matthew 
Arnold was cjuite a human being. He 
evidently was human enough to have 
enjoyed the lassitude of spring fever. 
Or perhaps he lived through many such , 
winters as we have just had. 
1‘eople who used to boast about the 
winters they had when they were boys 
have become singularly silent after this 
winter. It has been one of the heaviest. 
It has been very hard on human beings. 
V e owe it to ourselves to live lightly 
this spring. 
Living lightly can be interpreted in 
so many different ways that perhaps we 
had better look into it. It can’t mean 
that we should all lay off and do noth¬ 
ing. It can’t mean that the whole 
country should suddenly dodge its re¬ 
sponsibilities. 
Living lightly means to live with 
those things that come from the light. 
The growth of green things comes 
from the light, ^^’e should live with 
them this spring. We should spend . 
more time in the garden and in the sun. 
Being open and natural and happy of heart are also children of the 
light. I hese things we find in a garden. For only in the immediate 
presence of nature can we be wholly natural. The touch of the soil 
on the hands and the warmth of the sun on the back have a way of 
purging us of our futilities and pose. They remove the strange re¬ 
strictions that society puts upon us and leave us light hearted. Thev 
make the crooked things in our mind straight and the rough places 
plain. 
Good, honest perspiration is also a product of the light. If we are 
to believe the statistics of manufacturers and such, the world needs 
perspiration very l)adly. Labor has been so busy talking about its 
rights that it has forgotten to laljor, and having forgotten to labor, it 
has not known the cleansing of honest perspiration. Work, then, is a 
product of the light. To live lightly in the spring is to w’ork until 
the 'beads appear on the brow and the body glows with heat. This, 
also, is to be found in the garden. 
Simple elements, naturally combined, make up 
good architecture—the shingled wall, the ruddy 
brick, the unyielding wrought iron, the arch and 
its keystone, the tan light, the paneling of a door. 
Aymar Embury II and Lewis E. Welsh were the 
architects of this example 
'^J the third line in that verse asks if it is so small a thing 
^ “To have loved, to have thought, to have done." 
Ihis may seem a fine trilogy of glittering generalities. And yet, when 
you-come to think of it, those three things compose the whole of a life 
that is lived in the sun. 
Ihe sun warms the cockles of the heart and breeds the gentleness 
where love springs. It searches out the dark places, so that we look 
beyond the obvious superficialities of life and penetrate to its deeper 
meanings. The sun also energizes us to accomplish things that, by 
night, seemed only the unattainable phantoms of a dream. 
Some people may be capable of accomplishing all three within the 
limits of a paved city street. They are rare. The average mortal will 
find better inspiration for them in a garden.' No one can help lead 
the tender plant to fruition without acquiring the merit of that tender¬ 
ness himself and the love that springs from it. No man can behold 
the miracle that is in the yearly resurrection of the seed without being 
quickened to wonder and belief. No 
man can catch the' energy of a garden's 
life without sharing its vitality—the 
determined up-thrust of tender blades 
through the surmounting earth, the 
yielding to rain and wind, the final 
triumph in blossom and fruit. 
AND the last line of the stanza wants 
-/i. to know if it is a small thing 
“To have advanced true friends, and 
beat down baffling foes.” 
Not at all. But before you do either,, 
you must know which is friend and 
which foe. 
\\ e have had four years of advancing 
friends and beating down foes. \A’e 
have gotten so used to fighting that 
every time we see a head we itch to hit 
it. ^^’e call those who want to do the 
same our friends, whether they are true 
friends or not. Now it is alx)ut time 
we gave this some serious thought. Are 
all our friends true friends? Are all 
our apparent foes true foes? Haven't 
we just been striking right and left, we 
.\merican people, swatting the other 
fellow over the head with Prohibition 
and making friends with .Ynti-Red 
legislation in a blind belief that these 
things are to our ultimate interests? 
Perhaps we might learn a little wisdom 
from the gardener. 
One of the peculiar traits of a man 
or woman who really works in a garden 
and loves it is a very definite knowl¬ 
edge of what is friend and what is foe. 
He differentiates between the worm that 
keeps the loam open and the worm that 
cuts the roots of plants. He knows 
weeds from flowers, and understands 
that in plucking out weeds he manages 
to cultivate his garden. He knows 
when too much or too little rain is deadty. These things he learns 
by actual contact with both friend and foe. The gardener does not 
work on theory, he does not permit violent prejudices to. becloud his 
work, he seeks out each kind and acts accordingly—advancing true 
friends and beating down baffling foes. 
Such wisdom is a product of the light—light that shows up all 
things in their true values. .\nd we sorely need this wisdom of true 
values., It will give vitality to the arid ritual of our lives. Go into the 
garden and sit at the feet of those masters who enjoy the sun and live 
with the children of light. They have attained wisdom. 
“Is it so small a thing 
To have enjoy’d the sun. 
To have lived light in the spring; 
To have loved, to have thought, to have done; 
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes? 
