A GOOD-BY TO WINTER 215 



is well known that people who live in the 

 tropics seldom know their own age. How 

 should they, with nothing to distinguish one 

 time of year from another ? Young or old, 

 they have never learned that " there are four 

 seasons in the year." 



We are better off. Life with us is not 

 all in the present tense. As Hamlet said, 

 we look before and after. (Hence it is, I 

 suppose, that we have "such large dis- 

 course," and continue, some of us, to write 

 compositions.) We live by expectation. 

 "Behold," says the weather, "I make all 

 things new." Every day is another one, 

 and every season also. At this very minute 

 a miraculous change is at hand. A great 

 and effectual door is about to swing on its 

 hinges, and I, for one, wish to be awake to 

 see it ; not to wake up by and by and find 

 the door wide open. 



So far from wearying of the seasons as an 

 old story, I am more intensely interested in 

 them than ever. If any of my fellow citi- 

 zens are not just now thinking daily of the 

 passing of winter and the advent of spring, 

 I should like to know what they are made 



