92 ARBOR DAY 



of Europe, Spring has taken shelter from the wind 

 and the snows in a palace of peace and light and 

 love, it is interesting to detect its preparations for 

 traveling in the fields of undying green. I can see 

 clearly that it is afraid, that it hesitates once more to 

 face the great frost-traps which February and March 

 lay for it annually beyond the mountains. It waits, 

 it dallies, it tries its strength before resuming the 

 harsh and cruel way which the hypocrite winter 

 seems to yield to it. It stops, sets out again, revisits 

 a thousand times, like a child running round the 

 garden of its holidays, the fragrant valleys, the tender 

 hills which the frost has never brushed with its wings. 

 It has nothing to do here, nothing to revive, since 

 nothing has perished and nothing suffered, since all 

 the flowers of every season bathe here in the blue 

 air of an eternal summer. But it seeks pretexts, it 

 lingers, it loiters, it goes to and fro like an unoccupied 

 gardener. It pushes aside the branches, fondles 

 with its breath the olive-tree that quivers with a 

 silver smile, polishes the glossy grass, rouses the 

 corollas that were not asleep, recalls the birds that 

 had never fled, encourages the bees that were workers 

 without ceasing; and then, seeing, like God, that all 

 is well in the spotless Eden, it rests for a moment on 

 the ledge of a terrace which the orange-tree crowns 

 with regular flowers and with fruits of light, and, 

 before leaving, casts a last look over its labor ot 

 joy and entrusts it to the sun. 



