e 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