On taking down fences

September 6, 1991

Regarding the editorial "Fencing Them Out," Aug. 22: "Good fences make good neighbors" is not according to Robert Frost, but, rather, according to his neighbor. Toward the end of Frost's poem, "Mending Wall," he says to his neighbor: "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/ What I was walling in or walling out,/ And to whom I was like to give offense./ Something there is that doesn't love a wall,/ That wants it down." But his neighbor "moves in darkness as it seems to me,/ Not of woods only and the shadesof trees/ He will not go behind his father's saying..../ He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors. Would not a more careful use of the poem have given greater substance to your observation on zoning in the community of Chester, N.H.? Eleanor H. Ratledge, Chappaqua, N.Y.

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