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COMING OUT. 



LD MAY DAY. Now is May arrived in 

 earnest the real flowering May of the Old 

 Style and the old Poets; when kings and 

 queens were wont to "come out," and meet, as 

 they went a Maying; all the more glorious 

 things "come out" too, and "coming out" still, bright and 

 beautiful as ever, now that of all these royal personages even 

 the old bones are crumbled into dust. 



" Coming out ! " what a multitude of pleasant notions are 

 associated with this expression the very motto for the season, 

 now inscribed in living characters on the unfolding scroll of 

 nature. Who can want an exhortation to "come out" and read it? 



Not the flaxen-headed village children, who " coming out " 

 of school, hie shouting to the wood and meadow, where they 

 spell it (each after his fashion) with a merry laugh, 



Not the captives set free, be it from durance, from 

 disease, or labour. These from the dark-barred prison from 

 the close sick chamber, from the foetid factory " coming 

 out " themselves, all read the bright inscription in the glorious 

 sunshine in the free fresh air, in the opening flowers : 

 read it with eyes that glisten, and hearts that, if not crushed 

 entirely, expand with gratitude and joy. 



And other " comings out " are in progress, which, as com- 

 pared with these, are cold, conventional and artificial yet not 

 without a something, in their way, of seasonable light and 

 gaiety and promise. Of such are the " coming out" of new 

 books of new actors of fair new flowers, not of the garden 

 or the wild, but of the world, 



" With eyes 

 That mock the hazel-nut and shame the violet." 



Last, not least, in eyes like these, are the fashions, " coming 



