204 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



ourselves so far in advance of hyperboreans, 

 find the at present all prevailing browns of win- 

 ter an inspiring color? It is not for a moment 

 to be considered with reference to what has 

 been or will be, but as to what is. Here we 

 are, confronting a brown world this Christmas 

 morning, brown grass, brown weeds, brown 

 everything, and yet only regretfully, and loath 

 to take up each object as it is and live in the 

 present moment. If we could walk with the 

 Carolina wren continually present, chiding our 

 faint-heartedness, perhaps our illogic would not 

 be overpowering. Do not wait, however, for 

 the bird to call out Look up at me, look up at 

 me/ but remember its cheerful assurances at 

 the outset and live only in the present moment ; 

 never indulge in a backward glance even men- 

 tally, nor, worse than all, wonder if your neigh- 

 bor's fields are less brown than your own. 

 Here you are, and a downright fool not to 

 make the best of it. Let the path before you 

 be the subject of a brown study, but do not let 

 any element of a sad and sickly retrospection 

 enter therein. Why, when grass is dead, does 

 it turn brown and yellow rather than pink and 



