would
say, 'the last tender hours of autumn, the first deathful-thrilling
snowfall, with all the thoughts of life wandering flake-like through the
dim air--rather these than the recurrence of those impulses and pauses,
those kisses frozen on the lips, those tender rays turning to the lash
of sleet across the face of nature. No, the only advantage spring can
claim over her sister seasons is her novelty, the only reason she can
offer for being the spoiled child of the poets is that nobody but the
poets could keep on fancying that there was any longer the least
originality in her novelty."

The poet attempted to speak, in the little stop he of the Easy Chair
made for taking breath, but he was not suffered to do so.

"Every atom of originality has been drained from the novelty of spring
'in the process of the suns,' and science is rapidly depriving her even
of novelty. What was once supposed to be the spring grass has been found
to be nothing but the fall grass, with the green stealing back into the
withered blades. As for the spring lamb which used to crop the spring
grass, it is now out of the cold-storage where the spring chicken and
the new-laid eggs of yesteryear come from. It is said that there are no
birds in last year's nests, but probably a careful examination would
discover a plentiful hatch of nestlings which have hibernated in the
habitations popularly supposed to be deserted the June before this.
Early spring vegetables are in market throughout the twelvemonth, and
spring flowers abound at the florists' in December and January. There is
no reason why spring should not be absorbed into winter and summer by
some such partition as took place politically in the case of Poland.
Like that unhappy kingdom, she has abused her independence and become a
molestation and discomfort to the annual meteorology. As a season she is
distinctly a failure, being neither one thing nor the other, neither hot
nor cold, a very Laodicean. Her winds were once supposed to be very
siccative, and peculiarly useful in drying the plaster in new houses;
but now the contractors put in radiators as soon as the walls are up,
and the work is done much better. As for the germinative force of her
suns, in these days of intensive farming, when electricity is applied to
the work once done by them, they can claim to have no virtue beyond the
suns of July or August, which most seeds find effective enough. If
spring were absorbed into summer, the heat