A SPRING HERESY 87 



conversazione in the middle of a fog-bound, frost- 

 bound city. Each, in his or her way, indulges a 

 natural impulse ; each has a capacity for miserable- 

 ness, and in gratifying it is, as one may say, miser- 

 ably satisfied. 



I, too, am not without my natural impulses. When 

 I went to bed last night I said, "It will be Christmas 

 Day in four days ; but it will be spring to-morrow." 

 I did not make Christmas, or it would probably have 

 been about Lady-day ; but I did make spring my 

 spring, always understood, and that is why it falls 

 about Christmas. I was conscious, as I lay, of the 

 sunken sun swinging along on a mighty arc under 

 my bed, and knew that the longest southern day then 

 in progress was the complement of the shortest 

 northern one just past. To-morrow it would rise 

 imperceptibly nearer east and set infinitesimally 

 nearer west than to-day. That was enough ; that 

 would do. A man is free to go to sleep on what 

 thoughts he will. It would be spring in the morning. 



I awoke next day to the far-sounding booming of 

 the workmens' "buzzer" a mile away, and to the 

 nearer "triplets" of a church bell summoning the 

 faithful to early devotions. I must explain that 

 I reside in an old-time village with some very 

 extensive modern additions. There is said to be 

 on one side of it a growing town, so considerable 

 as to command the attention of Parliamentary 

 candidates. In it is an enormous works where 

 thousands of workmen are employed. It is for 

 these the "buzzer" sounds. The church bell is 

 slightly the senior of the "buzzer." Before the 

 buzzer was born, the children of light were slack in 



