Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 342 pages of information about Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools.

Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 342 pages of information about Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools.
The Discovery of the Old Northwest James Baldwin
Boots and Saddles Elizabeth Custer
La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West Francis Parkman
The Oregon Trail " "
Samuel Houston Henry Bruce
The Story of the Railroad Cy Warman
The Pioneers Walt Whitman
The Story of the Cowboy Emerson Hough
Woodrow Wilson W.B.  Hale
Recollections of Thirteen Presidents John S. Wise
Presidential Problems Grover Cleveland
The Story of the White House Esther Singleton

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

(From My Summer in a Garden)

NINTH WEEK

I am more and more impressed with the moral qualities of vegetables, and contemplate forming a science which shall rank with comparative anatomy and comparative philology,—­the science of comparative vegetable morality.  We live in an age of protoplasm.  And, if life-matter is essentially the same in all forms of life, I purpose to begin early, and ascertain the nature of the plants for which I am responsible.  I will not associate with any vegetable which is disreputable, or has not some quality that can contribute to my moral growth.  I do not care to be seen much with the squashes or the dead-beets....

This matter of vegetable rank has not been at all studied as it should be.  Why do we respect some vegetables, and despise others, when all of them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table?  The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose.  There is no dignity in the bean.  Corn, which in my garden grows alongside the bean, and, so far as I can see, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child of song.  It waves in all literature.  But mix it with beans, and its high tone is gone.  Succotash is vulgar.  It is the bean in it.  The bean is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavor of high society among vegetables.  Then there is the cool cucumber, like so many people,—­good for nothing when it is ripe and the wildness has gone out of it.  How inferior in quality it is to the melon, which grows upon a similar vine, is of a like watery consistency, but is not half so valuable!  The cucumber is a sort of low comedian in a company where the melon is a minor gentleman.  I might also contrast the celery with the potato.  The associations are as opposite as the dining-room of the duchess and the cabin of the peasant.  I admire the potato, both in vine and blossom; but it is not aristocratic. 

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.