This morning, as I sat on a bench in one of the most frequented walks
of Central Park, I could almost have touched the sparrows on the sprays
about me; a squirrel, foraging for nuts, climbed on my knees, as if
to explore my pockets. Of course, there is a policeman at every turn
to see that no wrong is done these pretty creatures, and that no sort
of trespass is committed by any in the domain of all; but I like to
think that the security and immunity of the Park is proof of something
besides the vigilance of its guardians; that it is a hint of a growing
sense in Americans that what is common is the personal charge of every
one in the community.
As I turn from my page and look out upon it, I see the domes and
spires of its foliage beginning to feel the autumn and taking on the
wonderful sunset tints of the year in its decline; when I stray through
its pleasant paths, I feel the pathos of the tender October air;
but, better than these sensuous delights, in everything of it and in
it, I imagine a prophecy of the truer state which I believe America
is destined yet to see established. It cannot be that the countless
thousands who continually visit it, and share equally in its beauty,
can all come away insensible of the meaning of it; here and there some
one must ask himself, and then ask others, why the whole of life should
not be as generous and as just as this part of it; why he should not
have a country as palpably his own as the Central Park is, where his
ownership excludes the ownership of no other. Some workman out of work,
as he trudges aimlessly through its paths must wonder why the city
cannot minister to his need as well as his pleasure, and not hold aloof
from him till he is thrown a pauper on its fitful charities. If it can
give him this magnificent garden for his forced leisure, why cannot it
give him a shop where he can go in extremity, to earn his bread?