A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 21 



that one gets tired at last of her pretty miffs and reconcilia 

 tions. You go to her to be cheered up a bit, and ten to one 

 catch her in the sulks, expecting you to find enough good- 

 humour for both. After she has become Mrs. Summer she 

 grows a little more staid in her demeanour, and her abun 

 dant table, where you are sure to get the earliest fruits and 

 vegetables of the season, is a good foundation for steady 

 friendship ; but she has lost that delicious aroma of maiden 

 hood, and what was delicately rounded grace in the girl 

 gives more than hints of something like redundance in the 

 matron. Autumn is the poet of the family. He gets you up 

 a splendour that you would say was made out of real sunset ; 

 but it is nothing more than a few hectic leaves, when all is 

 done. He is but a sentimentalist, after all ; a kind of Lamar- 

 tine whining along the ancestral avenues he has made bare 

 timber of, and begging a contribution of good spirits from 

 your own savings to keep him in countenance. But WinterA 

 has his delicate sensibilities too, only he does not make\ 

 them as good as indelicate by thrusting them for ever in 

 your face. He is a better poet than Autumn, when he has a 

 mind, but, like a truly great one as he is, he brings you down 

 to your bare manhood, and bids you understand him out of 

 that, with no adventitious helps of association, or he will 

 none of you. He does not touch those melancholy chords on 

 which Autumn is as great a master as Heine. Well, is there 

 no such thing as thrumming on them and maundering over 

 them till they get out of tune, and you wish some manly 

 hand would crash through them and leave them dangling 

 brokenly for ever ? Take Winter as you find him, and he 

 turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow, with no nonsense 

 in him, and tolerating none in you, which is a great comfort 

 in the long run. He is not what they call a genial critic, 

 but bring a real man along with you, and you will find there 

 is a crabbed generosity about the old cynic that you would 

 not exchange for all the creamy concessions of Autumn. 

 * Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness/ quotha ? That s 

 just it ; Winter soon blows your head clear of fog and makes 

 you see things as they are. I thank him for it ! The truth 

 is, between ourselves, I have a very good opinion of the 

 whole family, who always welcome me without making me 

 feel as if I were too much of a poor relation. There ought 

 to be some kind of distance, never so little, you know, to 



