A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 23 



and perhaps also these exhibitions of hers are cheapened in 

 estimation by the fact that in enjoying them we are not 

 getting the better of anybody else. Your true lovers of 

 nature, however, contrive to get even this solace ; and 

 Wordsworth, looking upon mountains as his own peculiar 

 sweethearts, was jealous of anybody else who ventured 

 upon even the most innocent flirtation with them. As if 

 such fellows, indeed, could pretend to that nicer sense 

 of what-d ye-call-it which was so remarkable in him ! 

 Marry come up ! Mountains, no doubt, may inspire a 

 profounder and more exclusive passion, bub on the whole 

 I am not sorry to have been born and bred among more 

 domestic scenes, where I can be hospitable without a pang. 

 I am going to ask you presently to take pot-luck with me at 

 a board where Winter shall supply whatever there is of 

 cheer. 



I think the old fellow has hitherto had scant justice clone 

 him in the main. We make him the symbol of old age or 

 death, and think we have settled the matter. As if old 

 age were never kindly as well as frosty ; as if it had no 

 reverend graces of its own as good in their way as the 

 noisy impertinence of childhood, the elbowing self-conceit 

 of youth, or the pompous mediocrity of middle life. As if 

 there were anything discreditable in death, or nobody 

 had ever longed for it ! Suppose we grant that Winter 

 is the sleep of the year, what then ? I take it upon me 

 to say that his dreams are finer than the best reality of 

 his waking rivals. 



&quot;Sleep, Silence child, the father of soft Rest,&quot; 



is a very agreeable acquaintance, and most of us are 

 better employed in his company than anywhere else. For 

 my own part, I think Winter a pretty wide-awake old 

 boy, and his bluff sincerity and hearty ways are more 

 congenial to my mood, and more wholesome for me, 

 than any charms of which his rivals are capable. 

 Spring is a fickle mistress, who either does not know 

 her own mind, or is so long in making it up, whether 



