BOOK I. SPRING 



IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH 



ERMINAL, Floreal, Prairial "these were the 

 VJF names given to the Spring months at a famous 

 Spring-tide, over a hundred years ago, when men in the 

 April folly of their hearts dreamed that they could make 

 all things new. But the new names proposed, which are 

 certainly not without merit, have passed away with many 

 other things ; the old names remain, and perhaps they are 

 well enough. They are certainly better than those of the last 

 section of the year, where the art of naming that began in 

 Eden touches low- water mark. The old names are well 

 enough, we say, for is not March a month of warring, of 

 elemental strife, when the sun gains his well-assured annual 

 victory ? And is not April indeed the month of opening ? 

 The earth that has been frost-bound opens, and the seedlings 

 lift their heads, drowsily nodding, " nutating," as the botan- 

 ists put it, bending and bowing to the different points of the 

 compass, swithering between the peace of automatism and 

 the pleasures of sentiency. The buds open, and the leaves 

 unfold,a literal " evolutio of inherited potentialities expressed 

 under an appropriate environment of liberating stimuli." 

 The spring flowers open and the newly awakened insects 

 visit them. Of a surety, April is the time of opening of 

 the earth, of the seeds, of the buds, of the flowers, of the 

 eggs, and of the womb, of the song of birds, and of the heart 

 of man. 



