NUMBER XXXI 

 WINTER 



EVERY one knows the old season-story of the 

 Sleeping Beauty. She was richly dowered 

 with beauty and other gifts, but all was shadowed 

 by the foreboding of early death. This doom, 

 however, was changed into a kinder spell, which 

 bound her to sleep, but not to dying. All care 

 notwithstanding, the spindle pierced her hand, she 

 fell into deep sleep, whence at last the Prince's 

 kiss served for her awakening. The meaning is 

 plain : The Princess was our fair earth with its 

 glow of life, her youth was summer often shadowed ; 

 the fatal spindle was the piercing cold ; the spell- 

 bound sleep was winter's long rest ; the kiss that 

 awakened was the first strong sunshine of spring. 

 The old story is one of the " fairy-tales of science." 



In the same way, though there is much else in the 

 story, Balder the Beautiful meant the vigour of the 

 sunny summer ; and the twig of gloom, the mistle- 

 toe, which flourishes and fruits in winter, and was 

 fatal to Balder, was the emblem of the freezing cold 

 which so often brings sudden death or the quiet 

 peace of sleep. 



To the cold and the scarcity of food which winter 

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