64 
House & 
Garden 
SPRING PILGRIMAGES 
In More Than One Way We Can Prove 
That Old Geoffrey Chaucer Was Right 
C HAUCER was right. When April pours out her sweet 
showers and pierces the drought of March to the root, men 
do long to go on pilgrimages. In his day the pilgrimage was 
inspired partly by religious motives, partly by the desire to take 
a little jaunt. Behind it lay the urge to leave one’s old and accus¬ 
tomed surroundings and seek something new and unaccustomed, 
something of beauty,' something of romance. The pilgrimage was 
an expression of an effort to find a new environment. 
A new environment cannot be had by merely wishing for it; 
one has to make a distinct effort of the will and an equally 
distinct effort of the body. Whatever it is that quickens us, it 
must find expression in the act of going and it cannot be satisfied 
unless, from the journey's end, we bring home something new and 
fresh and stimulating. 
Chaucer's pilgrims brought back not only the palmer's shell and 
staff, but the remembrance of great deeds and unforgettable visions. 
In those times men had to go to the end of the earth for the beauty 
that they brought home. Today’s pilgrims bring back equally 
unforgettable memories and, in their hands, equally tangible evi¬ 
dences of the journey, only the journey isn't so far because beauty 
is brought from the ends of the earth for them. 
A SPRING morning. You feel the upward urge that is 
stirring Nature. Men who usually ride to their work prefer 
to walk. Women hasten through their household duties and 
get out of doors. The first day of spring in town stirs even the 
laziest to be up and on the go. And where do they go, these modern 
pilgrims? Where do they seek their new environment? Where do 
they hasten for their taste of adventure and romance. To the shops. 
The man comes home with a new golf stick, the wife with a 
new hat, the boy with a new bag of marbles, the flapper daughter 
with a new cigarette holder, the studious aunt with a new and 
ponderous book. Each of these helps create a new environment. 
The purchase and owning of them impart a distinct thrill. They 
make life a little more enjoyable. 
T 
HERE are three states of mind that actuate buying things— 
a realization of necessity, a sense of generosity and a 
sudden desire to break bounds. 
When a man or woman simply has to have a new hat, and goes 
forth sternly to buy it, then the purchase is actuated by necessity. 
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but she is not always 
the mother of romance. 
When, as at Christmas time and on birthdays, one goes forth to 
purchase something for someone else, the motive is generosity. 
There is a distinct romance in this. There is adventure in seeking 
it among the myriad wares of the shops, assembled from the four 
corners of the earth. And happiness is acquired by anticipating 
the happiness the recipient will have in opening the package and 
thenceforth owning it. Some years ago a group of sternly sensible 
women tried to curb Christmas giving. The movement enjoyed its 
days of publicity and died, as it should have died. Because the 
very secret of Christmas giving is that it should never be utterly 
sensible; there should be a touch of madness in it; one should give 
what one cannot afford—and face the bills with nonchalance. 
But the greatest of all motives in purchasing is that sense of 
reckless insubordination one can acquire from it. The wife 
really does not need that new hat; the husband does not actually 
need that new golf stick, nor the studious aunt the new and pon¬ 
derous tome. One whose purse is lean finds some beautiful object, 
craves it, goes in willy-nilly and buys it—a vase, a picture, a 
yard or so of new cretonne, a chair in fascinating lines. She may 
have to skimp on other expenditures for a week or so, but what 
of it? She has thrown down her gauntlet of circumstance. She 
has leaped out of the bonds that held her. Having been so bold, 
she can then face her future with a courageous heart. 
A man of our acquaintance was recently told that he would have 
to undergo an operation, an expensive and serious operation. 
Having received this pleasant news, he left the surgeon’s office 
feeling very low. Life held no future for him. He would have 
the surgeon to pay and the hospital to pay—and perhaps the last 
bill would be to a lugubrious undertaker for planting him beneath 
some suburban sod. He hadn't the slightest notion how these bills 
were ever going to be met. A block from the surgeon’s office he 
passed a book store. He passed it hurriedly because books were 
his weakness. Of course he couldn’t think of buving a book; had 
he not to pay a surgeon and a hospital and possibly an undertaker? 
At the corner he hesitated, turned back and rushed into the shop. 
On the shelves he found a delightful old set of Fielding. He didn’t 
own a Fielding. The shopkeeper said he would let the set go 
for $45. “Sold!” said the condemned man. And walking down 
the street with the books under his arm, he could have been heard 
to shout, “Bring on your ether! Bring on your knives!” 
I N CHAUCER’S days there were doubtless people who 
thought spring pilgrimages the height of folly. The hus¬ 
band of the Wife of Bath probably told her that she ought 
to stay home and look after the children; the Squire's neighbors 
said that he was a fool to leave his farms just when spring plow¬ 
ing and seeding were being done, and what the wife of the Miller 
said to him would probably not be fit for print. Perhaps what the 
modern husband says to the modern wife when she comes home 
from her pilgrimage with a new spring hat would be equally 
unfit for print, and what the wife says to the husband about the 
additional golf stick. 
Such assaults of sensibility need never dent one’s armor. Go 
forth, then, on your spring pilgrimage to the shops that have 
brought beauty from the ends of the earth. 
