The Birds' Calendar 



favorites ? With the current of Hfe ever full and 

 steady in its flow, all of the exhilaration of 

 spring, its exultation and enthusiasm, would 

 disappear, for spring itself would cease to be. 

 As Shakespeare puts it — 



" How many things by season season'd are 

 To their right praise and true perfection ! " 



In his periodical regret at losing his wood- 

 land friends, the ornithologist or botanist is 

 forgetting that if they did not go away they 

 could not come again. Nature's plans are 

 formed, not for the best effect of a single year, 

 but for the greatest aggregate of effect for all 

 time. Even music itself is permeated through 

 and through with discord ; not because of itself 

 can it ever please, but for its power in contrast 

 to enhance the concord. Discord is as hateful 

 to the ear as darkness to the eye, but they are 

 the necessary foils of harmony and light, as 

 winter is of spring. 



We shall have to be very differently con- 

 stituted before we shall be satisfied to live 

 under the constant blaze of the poet's '' high, 

 eternal noon." Nor yet — not to be too par- 

 ticular — do I think that any one is quite will- 

 ing to go to that equally monotonous place 



72 



