Impressions 



is, these imaginative folk have so warped our 

 minds that we look for more than we can rea- 

 sonably expect to find. There is a pane of glass 

 in one of my windows that has a twist in it, 

 which lifts every little bush from the ground 

 and makes of it a long, slender Lombardy pop- 

 lar. It is so with the poetry that we have relied 

 on for our ideas of May. Every bush a tall 

 tree ; every blossom, a bouquet, and, worse than 

 all, every hour flooded with sunshine. We have 

 had our faith undermined and tempers spoiled 

 by teaching that later we have to unlearn. 

 There is no one that does not rebel when it is 

 stormy or cold in May. The man who professes 

 to b^ content and preaches patience is to be 

 watched. 



The statistics of the Weather Bureau are 

 saner than the effusions of the Spring poet. 

 The return of the seasons, and what they are, 

 we know by name rather than by nature, and 

 should expect nothing. In every twelve months 

 there is a round of changes, but no very or- 

 derly procession. The seasons may have a 

 path but they do not keep in it; so too, the 

 months have their allotted phenomena but they 

 lack method in handling them. 



65 



