WINTER AS IT WAS 



WITH the wind howling from the northwest, 

 and the mercury crouching below the zero 

 mark, it seems a good time to sit in the house 

 and think of winter as it used to be. What 

 is the advantage of growing old, if one can- 

 not find an hour now and then for the plea- 

 sures of memory ? 



The year's end is for the young. Such is 

 the order of the world, the universal paradox. 

 Opposite seeks opposite. And we were young 

 once, a good while ago, and for us, also, 

 winter was a bright and busy season, its days 

 all too short and too few. I speak of " week- 

 days," be it understood. As for winter Sun- 

 days, in an unwarmed meeting-house (though 

 the sermon might be like the breath of 

 Nebuchadnezzar's furnace), we should have 

 been paragons of early piety, beings too good 

 to live, if we had wished the hours longer. 

 Let their miseries be forgotten. 



