nature. And the grape is morally no better. I think the ancients, who
were not troubled with the recondite mystery of protoplasm, were right
in the mythic union of Bacchus and Venus.

Talk about the Darwinian theory of development, and the principle of
natural selection! I should like to see a garden let to run in
accordance with it. If I had left my vegetables and weeds to a free
fight, in which the strongest specimens only should come to maturity,
and the weaker go to the wall, I can clearly see that I should have
had a pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene of passion and
license and brutality. The "pusley" would have strangled the
strawberry; the upright corn, which has now ears to hear the guilty
beating of the hearts of the children who steal the raspberries,
would have been dragged to the earth by the wandering bean; the
snake-grass would have left no place for the potatoes under ground;
and the tomatoes would have been swamped by the lusty weeds. With a
firm hand, I have had to make my own "natural selection." Nothing
will so well bear watching as a garden, except a family of children
next door. Their power of selection beats mine. If they could read
half as well as they can steal awhile away, I should put up a notice,
"Children, beware! There is Protoplasm here." But I suppose it would
have no effect. I believe they would eat protoplasm as quick as
anything else, ripe or green. I wonder if this is going to be a
cholera-year. Considerable cholera is the only thing that would let
my apples and pears ripen. Of course I do not care for the fruit;
but I do not want to take the responsibility of letting so much
"life-matter," full of crude and even wicked vegetable-human
tendencies, pass into the composition of the neighbors' children,
some of whom may be as immortal as snake-grass. There ought to be a
public meeting about this, and resolutions, and perhaps a clambake.