APRIL. 73 



two reflections, the one that deceives is better than the 

 one that utters the truth; and though we are several 

 months older than we were in the autumn, we may thank 

 Heaven for the delusion that makes us feel younger. 



Spring, the true season of hopefulness and action, is 

 unfavorable to thought. So many delightful objects are 

 constantly inviting us to pleasure, that we are tempted to 

 neglect our serious pursuits, and we feel too much exhila- 

 ration for confinement or study. It is not while sur- 

 rounded by pleasures of any kind that we are most capable 

 of reflecting upon them or describing their influence ; for 

 the act of thinking upon them requires a suspension of our 

 enjoyments. Hence, in winter we can most easily discourse 

 upon the charms of spring and summer, when the task 

 becomes a pleasant occupation, by reviving the scenes of 

 past delights blended with a foretaste of joys that are to 

 come. But when the rising flowers, the perfumed breezes, 

 and the music of the animated tenants of the streams, 

 woods, and orchards, are all inviting us to come forth and 

 partake of the pleasures they proffer, it is wearisome to 

 sit down apart from all these delights to the compara- 

 tively dull task of describing them. 



As childhood is not always happy, and as youth is lia- 

 ble to the sorrows and afflictions of later life, the spring 

 is not always cheerful, and the vernal skies are sometimes 

 blackened with wintry tempests^ and the earth bound in 

 ice and frost. Even in April the little flowers that are 

 just peeping out from their winter coverts are often 

 greeted by snow, and spring's "ethereal mildness" is 

 exchanged for harsh winds and cloudy skies. In vain do 

 the crocus, the snowdrop, and the yellow narcissus appear 

 in the gardens, or the blue violet arid the saxifrage span- 

 gle the southern slopes of the hills, the north-wind is 

 not tempered by their beauty nor beguiled by the songs 

 of the early birds. 



