A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 31 



depressing one ; for I think there is nothing so demoraliz- 

 ing as cold. I know of a boy who, when his father, a 

 bitter economist, was brought home dead, said only, 

 " Now we can burn as much wood as we like." I would 

 not off-hand prophesy the gallows for that boy. I re- 

 member with a shudder a pinch I got from the cold once 

 in a railroad-car. A born fanatic of fresh air, I found 

 myself glad to see the windows hermetically sealed by 

 the freezing vapor of our breath, and plotted the assassi- 

 nation of the conductor every time he opened the door. 

 I felt myself sensibly barbarizing, and would have shared 

 Colonel Jack's bed in the ash-hole of the glass-furnace 

 with a grateful heart. Since then I have had more 

 charity for the prevailing ill-opinion of winter. It was 

 natural enough that Ovid should measure the years of 

 his exile in Pontus by the number of winters. 



Ut sumus in Ponto, ter frigore constitit Ister, 



Facta est Euxini dura ter unda maris : 

 Thrice hath the cold bound Ister fastj since I 

 In Pontus was, thrice Euxine's wave made hard. 



Jubinal has printed an Anglo-Norman piece of doggerel 

 in which Winter and Summer dispute which is the better 

 man. It is not without a kind of rough and inchoate 

 humor, and I like it because old Whitebeard gets toler- 

 ably fair play. The jolly old fellow boasts of his rate of 

 living, with that contempt of poverty which is the weak 

 spot in the burly English nature. 



Ja Dieu ne place que me avyenge 



Que ne face plus honour 



Et plus despenz en un soul jour 



Que vus en tote vostre vie : 



Now God forbid it hap to me 



That I make not more great display, 



And spend more in a single day 



Than you can do in all your life. 



The best touch, perhaps, is Winter's claim for credit as a 

 mender of the highways, which was not without point 



