On the Edge of Spring 



and poetry. Spring is the beckoner among 

 the seasons. We never quite get hold of her 

 hand, as we do of Summer's, and Autumn's, 

 and particularly Winter's. Our wooing of 

 her is ever the delight of pursuit. All her 

 kisses are blown to us. 



To me, the most ethereal and delicious 

 moment of this pursuit of spring is the 

 time when, as we say, spring is first "in 

 the air." The expectation of the new, bud 

 ding year is never quite so thrilling, so 

 transporting Thoreau calls it "exciting" 

 as then. That first changing of the air, in 

 late February and early March, from the 

 winter quality to the spring quality have 

 you not remarked it with all your senses, 

 and been mysteriously and irresistibly elated 

 and exalted thereby, as if body and soul 

 were suddenly set in perfect tune with the 

 music of the spheres? And that earliest 

 whiff of the soil is there any perfume to 

 compare with it in delicious suggestiveness ? 

 How it recalls all the sweet youthfulness 

 of life and nature! As Henry Van Dyke 

 so charmingly says : "Of all the faculties 

 of the human mind, memory is the one 

 that is most easily led by the nose." I 



2 I 7 



