/// The Strife of March 



THE land wind and the sea wind rage in England 

 over debatable ground. Usually the moist, mild 

 sea wind prevails ; it blows in most years for 

 twice as long as the east wind with its bitter dryness. 

 But in spring the two blasts are more at an equi- 

 poise ; there are years in which spring is spirited 

 into England by the west wind blowing from remote 

 islands of the ocean, and others in which it seems 

 wrung from the east wind and the frost by main 

 force of the sun. The softer and earlier spring 

 weather is nursed under grey canopies of cloud 

 and the darkness of the temperate nights ; and 

 when the first strong sunshine floods the earth in 

 late February or early March, its landscapes are 

 already tinged with tender verdure and with the 

 bloom of moist fertility in twig and clod. 



East wind springs come late, with the glittering 

 sharpness of the polar bergs. When the sun of 

 March beats upon a world kept naked by prolonged 

 east wind and frost, it draws an exaggerated brilli- 

 ance from every point of colour or reflection be- 

 tween the hazy horizons. Even the leaves of the 

 glistening hollies are often clouded by the frost ; 

 but where their bare trunks stand clear above 

 the hedgerow they flash like wet rocks before the 

 moving eye. The ivy-bush glitters with a white 

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