IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH 319 



VI 



It seems a true paradox that one of the great facts in the 

 Biology of Winter is the frequency of Death. Not that 

 there is any season when Death is not busy, or any oppor- 

 tunity which he does nor seize ; he picks and chooses 

 among the newborn of the early Spring, he lays pitfalls for 

 the adolescent, he thins the ranks of Summer's industry, 

 he puts in a full stop at the limit of growth, he forces open 

 the door which Love seeks to keep closed, he harvests in 

 Autumn ; but it is in Winter that his power is most felt. 

 It is the time of least heat, least light, least food, and, 

 therefore, of least resistance and lowest vitality. 



The influence on plant-life is most obvious and direct ; 

 a large fraction of the income of radiant energy is cut off, 

 the water-supply is also reduced, and there is further risk 

 that the frost cause bursting of cells and vessels within the 

 plant just as in our houses. The diminished vigour of 

 plant -life means less food for the animals, and on them, too, 

 the relative lack of warmth and sunlight has a directly 

 disastrous effect. Given, as Shelley pictures, 



" A winter such as when birds die 

 In the deep forests, and the fishes lie 

 Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes 

 Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes 

 A wrinkled clod, as hard as brick," 



the decimating influences are perceptible on every side. 

 Thus after a hard Winter there is eloquent statistical 

 evidence forthcoming of the mortality from moor and 

 forest, lake and seashore. Winter is indeed a time of rest 

 and sleep, but as surely of elimination and death. 



Death always means the irrecoverable cessation of 

 bodily life, but it has many forms violent, microbic, 

 and natural each, again, with its subdivisions, and it 



