nk of anything. I am not sure but
goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a
sweet apple roasted before the fire. The late September and October sun
of this latitude is something like the sun of extreme Lower Italy: you
can stand a good deal of it, and apparently soak a winter supply into
the system. If one only could take in his winter fuel in this way! The
next great discovery will, very likely, be the conservation of sunlight.
In the correlation of forces, I look to see the day when the superfluous
sunshine will be utilized; as, for instance, that which has burned up my
celery this year will be converted into a force to work the garden.

This sitting in the sun amid the evidences of a ripe year is the easiest
part of gardening I have experienced. But what a combat has gone on
here! What vegetable passions have run the whole gamut of ambition,
selfishness, greed of place, fruition, satiety, and now rest here in the
truce of exhaustion! What a battle-field, if one may look upon it
so! The corn has lost its ammunition, and stacked arms in a slovenly,
militia sort of style. The ground vines are torn, trampled, and
withered; and the ungathered cucumbers, worthless melons, and golden
squashes lie about like the spent bombs and exploded shells of a
battle-field. So the cannon-balls lay on the sandy plain before Fort
Fisher after the capture. So the great grassy meadow at Munich, any
morning during the October Fest, is strewn with empty beermugs. History
constantly repeats itself. There is a large crop of moral reflections in
my garden, which anybody is at liberty to gather who passes this way.

I have tried to get in anything that offered temptation to sin. There
would be no thieves if there was nothing to steal; and I suppose, in the
thieves' catechism, the provider is as bad as the thief; and, probably,
I am to blame for leaving out a few winter pears, which some predatory
boy carried off on Sunday. At first I was angry, and said I should like
to have caught the urchin in the act; but, on second thought, I was glad
I did not. The interview could not have been pleasant: I shouldn't have
known what to do with him. The chances are, that he would have escaped
away with his pockets full, and jibed at me from a safe distance. And,
if I had got my hands on him, I should have been still more embarrassed.
If I had flogged him, he would have got over it a good deal sooner than
I should. That sort of boy d