Evening star., 1915-12-02
THE WALL.
BY DIR. FRANK CRANE.
Copyright. 1881

There is a wall about my garden. Not
that 1 want to keep people out. nor
even that I object to their looking IN.
but 1 love a wall for its spiritual sig
nificance.
The wall is of stone. and high. Vines
cover il. Fruits sprawl upon II.
Flowers crouch at its feet.
1t is a symbol of knowledge, because
| it marks the bounds of my piece OF
| earth, with which i am familiar. sep
| rating it from the wide, wide earth
which / can never know. For the es-
sential to comfortable knowledge Is not
to know what you know. hut to know
where the line is between what you
know and what you don't know.
Thus my wall is to me certainty.
Within it l feel like God in His world.
a cognizant master.
| 1t is my defense against the over
Iwhelming mystery all around. II lis to
me what a creed is to a believer, lit
| tie shelter against the infinite.
| II is to my soul what covers are to
book. Who could endure n book with
no beginning or end?
Human beings want a home, The in
stinct of our remote ancestors, which
led them to crawl back into their cave
| holes at night. fingers in our blood. II
| is well to venture forth. to travel and
| see StTaHRe IL Is Wen 10 Stalh
1 on the mountain and view vast dis
| tances. to go to the shore and feel the
ocean that dips beyond horizons. to
gaze up at the intricate galaXies and
| burning superworlds. but afterward we
| must return to our little square OF
earth; we must have walls and roof
lest we perish of lonesomeness
| l know the sense of property is
ephemeral. 4 while ago I was unborn
and owned nothing: a little while and
| shall go again into nothingness and
own nothing: but life itself is but "a
passing phase, and life functions I'm
property. Even those who boast of
possessing nothing tenacious Of
their opinions and have high fences
around their ego.
| Within my wall play the king. am
\ the darling of special privilege. None
can invade except ! open the door II
| iatters my vanity All have their want
| ties, hot or cold, offensive or defensive
of person or of possession: and surely
| the least Objectionable is the smugness
| that comes to him who pulls radishes
| from his own soil and glanctng around
sees the wall beyond which innumera-
Die radlshes are no matter to him.
| There are daisies in the fields but
| there are too many of them. 1t is my
wall that makes my garden daisies
| hner. Also my marigolds are more
golden, my heliotrope more odorous,
| my rose bush rs much dearer to me
than all possible rose bushes. as my
! own children are closer than the
| swarms of China.
| Herein. too, is liberty. For real liberty
exists not in the absence but in the
presence of limitations. No place are
YOU so bound as on the boundless sea
| Within my wall is true anarchy / can
| do as | please. i can pull up or trample
| down all these plants if / choose | can
| dance, or sing, or sit down. or smoke
or make mud pies. Who cares? There is
the wall. 1t means to me license for all
| my insanities.
There is no liberty that counts ex-
| cept liberty to act the fool. to do things
people do not expect you to do. One
\ can be wise and proper and good any
where; only within his walls can he be
dellciously unwise, hilariously incon-
| sistent.
There is a boy I should never have
| known had il not been for my wall. He
| is raggedy boy who climbs over and
steals my apples. They are green and
| puckery, yet he likes them more than
| the ripe ones over in the ope npasture
which he is free to take: but it is the
| wall that gives the exquisite flavor of
| outaWry to mine. I pretend not to
see him: he thinks he is foolfnR me-
and all the while he tickles me There
is nothing SO charming as to give one
pleasure and have him think YOU are
his enemy So both the boy and / have
a surreptitious fun that the unwalled
cannot know.