Short Summer Days. 141 



moment. However widely open are our eyes 

 and ears, the gateways of the mind, we can de- 

 tect nothing of the activity of days gone by. 

 Scarlet lobelia is the bloom of all others cele- 

 brating the achievements of the past, and has 

 only hints of a less glorious future. It is a re- 

 trospective bloom, and not, like April violets, a 

 prophetic flower. Need we sit down by the 

 nearest river or in the shade of a Babylonian 

 willow and weep because of this ? I never 

 thought so. This summer is not to prove the 

 very last, and there is more of the world still 

 than our senses can fully comprehend. A full 

 day is the very opposite of an overcrowded 

 one ; a day with its single, all-absorbing object 

 overflows when one that is kaleidoscopic merely 

 dazzles and is empty at the last. And what 

 day but has its worthy topic, be it long or short ? 

 What though the sun sets now an hour sooner 

 than in midsummer, it has more than enough 

 daylight for the busiest brain. Short, indeed ! 

 But might we not more consistently worry over 

 our own shortcomings, our many limitations, in 

 endeavoring to encompass the significance of 

 the shortest day ? Was it mere coincidence, I 



