Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might
have turned out so differently! If Ravaillac had not been imprisoned
for debt, he would not have stabbed Henry of Navarre. If William of
Orange had escaped assassination by Philip's emissaries; if France
had followed the French Calvin, and embraced Protestant Calvinism, as
it came very near doing towards the end of the sixteenth century; if
the Continental ammunition had not given out at Bunker's Hill; if
Blucher had not "come up" at Waterloo,--the lesson is, that things do
not come up unless they are planted. When you go behind the
historical scenery, you find there is a rope and pulley to effect
every transformation which has astonished you. It was the rascality
of a minister and a contractor five years before that lost the
battle; and the cause of the defeat was worthless ammunition. I
should like to know how many wars have been caused by fits of
indigestion, and how many more dynasties have been upset by the love
of woman than by the hate of man. It is only because we are ill
informed that anything surprises us; and we are disappointed because
we expect that for which we have not provided.
I had too vague expectations of what my garden would do of itself. A
garden ought to produce one everything,--just as a business ought to
support a man, and a house ought to keep itself. We had a convention
lately to resolve that the house should keep itself; but it won't.
There has been a lively time in our garden this summer; but it seems
to me there is very little to show for it. It has been a terrible
campaign; but where is the indemnity? Where are all "sass" and
Lorraine? It is true that we have lived on the country; but we
desire, besides, the fruits of the war. There are no onions, for one
thing. I am quite ashamed to take people into my garden, and have
them notice the absence of onions. It is very marked. In onion is
strength; and a garden without it lacks flavor. The onion in its
satin wrappings is among the most beautiful of vegetables; and it is
the only one that represents the essence of things. It can almost be
said to have a soul. You take off coat after coat) and the onion is
still there; and, when the last one is removed, who dare say that the
onion itself is destroyed, though you can weep over its departed
spirit? If there is any one thing on this fallen earth that the
angels in heaven weep over--more than another, it is the onion.
I know that there is supposed to be a prejudice against the onion;
but I think there is rather a cowardice in regard to it. I doubt not
that all men and women love the onion; but few confess their love.
Affection for it is concealed. Good New-Englanders are as shy of
owning it as they are of talking about religion. Some people have
days on which they eat onions,--what you might call "retreats," or
their "Thursdays." The act is in the nature of a religious ceremony,
an Eleusinian mystery; not a breath of it must get abroad. On that
day they see no company; they deny the kiss of greeting to the
dearest friend; they retire within themselves, and hold communion
with one of the most pungent and penetrating manifestations of the
moral vegetable world. Happy is said to be the family which can eat
onions together. They are, for the time being, separate from the
world, and have a harmony of aspiration. There is a hint here for
the reformers. Let them become apostles of the onion; let them eat,
and preach it to their fellows, and circulate tracts of it in the
form of seeds. In the onion is the hope of universal brotherhood.
If all men will eat onions at all times, they will come into a
universal sympathy. Look at Italy. I hope I am not mistaken as to
the cause of her unity. It was the Reds who preached the gospel
which made it possible. All the Reds of Europe, all the sworn
devotees of the mystic Mary Ann, eat of the common vegetable. Their
oaths are strong with it. It is the food, also, of the common people
of Italy. All the social atmosphere of that delicious land is laden
with it. Its odor is a practical democracy. In the churches all are
alike: there is one faith, one smell. The entrance of Victor Emanuel
into Rome is only the pompous proclamation of a unity which garlic
had already accomplished; and yet we, who boast of our democracy, eat
onions in secret.
I now see that I have left out many of the most moral elements.
Neither onions, parsnips, carrots, nor cabbages are here. I have
never seen a garden in the autumn before, without the uncouth cabbage
in it; but my garden gives the impression of a garden without a head.
The cabbage is the rose of Holland. I admire the force by which it
compacts its crisp leaves into a solid head. The secret of it would
be priceless to the world. We should see less expansive foreheads
with nothing within. Even the largest cabbages are not always the
best. But I mention these things, not from any sympathy I have with
the vegetables named, but to show how hard it is to go contrary to
the expectations of society. Society expects every man to have
certain things in his garden. Not to raise cabbage is as if one had
no pew in church. Perhaps we shall come some day to free churches
and free gardens; when I can show my neighbor through my tired
garden, at the end of the season, when skies are overcast, and brown
leaves are swirling down, and not mind if he does raise his eyebrows
when he observes, "Ah! I see you have none of this, and of that." At
present we want the moral courage to plant only what we need; to
spend only what will bring us peace, regardless of what is going on
over the fence. We are half ruined by conformity; but we should be
wholly ruined without it; and I presume I shall make a garden next
year that will be as popular as possible.
And this brings me to what I see may be a crisis in life. I begin to
feel the temptation of experiment. Agriculture, horticulture,
floriculture,--these are vast fields, into which one may wander away,
and never be seen more. It seemed to me a very simple thing, this
gardening; but it opens up astonishingly. It is like the infinite
possibilities in worsted-work. Polly sometimes says to me, "I wish
you would call at Bobbin's, and match that skein of worsted for me,
when you are in town." Time was, I used to accept such a commission
with alacrity and self-confidence. I went to Bobbin's, and asked one
of his young men, with easy indifference, to give me some of that.
The young man, who is as handsome a young man as ever I looked at,
and who appears to own the shop, and whose suave superciliousness
would be worth everything to a cabinet minister who wanted to repel
applicants for place, says, "I have n't an ounce: I have sent to
Paris, and I expect it every day. I have a good deal of difficulty
in getting that shade in my assortment." To think that he is in
communication with Paris, and perhaps with Persia! Respect for such
a being gives place to awe. I go to another shop, holding fast to my
scarlet clew. There I am shown a heap of stuff, with more colors and
shades than I had supposed existed in all the world. What a blaze of
distraction! I have been told to get as near the shade as I could;
and so I compare and contrast, till the whole thing seems to me about
of one color. But I can settle my mind on nothing. The affair
assumes a high degree of importance. I am satisfied with nothing but
perfection. I don't know what may happen if the shade is not
matched. I go to another shop, and another, and another. At last a
pretty girl, who could make any customer believe that green is blue,
matches the shade in a minute. I buy five cents worth. That was the
order. Women are the most economical persons that ever were. I have
spent two hours in this five-cent business; but who shall say they
were wasted, when I take the stuff home, and Polly says it is a
perfect match, and looks so pleased, and holds it up with the work,
at arm's length, and turns her head one side, and then takes her
needle, and works it in? Working in, I can see, my own obligingness
and amiability with every stitch. Five cents is dirt cheap for such
a pleasure.
The things I may do in my garden multiply on my vision. How
fascinating have the catalogues of the nurserymen become! Can I
raise all those beautiful varieties, each one of which is preferable
to the other? Shall I try all the kinds of grapes, and all the sorts
of pears? I have already fifteen varieties of strawberries (vines);
and I have no idea that I have hit the right one. Must I subscribe
to all the magazines and weekly papers which offer premiums of the
best vines? Oh, that all the strawberries were rolled into one, that
I could inclose all its lusciousness in one bite! Oh for the good
old days when a strawberry was a strawberry, and there was no
perplexity about it! There are more berries now than churches; and
no one knows what to believe. I have seen gardens which were all
experiment, given over to every new thing, and which produced little
or nothing to the owners, except the pleasure of expectation. People
grow pear-trees at great expense of time and money, which never yield
them more than four pears to the tree. The fashions of ladies'
bonnets are nothing to the fashions of nurserymen. He who attempts
to follow them has a business for life; but his life may be short.
If I enter upon this wide field of horticultural experiment, I shall
leave peace behind; and I may expect the ground to open, and swallow
me and all my fortune. May Heaven keep me to the old roots and herbs
of my forefathers! Perhaps in the world of modern reforms this is
not possible; but I intend now to cultivate only the standard things,
and learn to talk knowingly of the rest. Of course, one must keep up
a reputation. I have seen people greatly enjoy themselves, and
elevate themselves in their own esteem, in a wise and critical talk
about all the choice wines, while they were sipping a decoction, the
original cost of which bore no relation to the price of grapes.