THE WHITE LIGHT 19 



the forces that go to make the world ready for another 

 Spring. 



But that is a fancy bred of earthly experience and 

 the knowledge of the din and dust that go to all 

 man's achievements upon matter. Here Nature works 

 with soft snows and with the fingers of midnight 

 frosts, with clouds and golden sunshines, mists and 

 dews. Only the winds sometimes sweeten her autumn 

 workshops, and her rains of equinox carry the products 

 gleaned from sun and sky and leafy Summers back to 

 the veins of the Mother, that her unborn children may 

 be the fairer. 



On such a day it is well to discard opinions if the 

 white light proves them wrong. Strip them away, 

 and let the North- East wind touch the scar they leave. 

 If it is your habit to retain an open mind, then error 

 rectified is merely pleasure won. If, with the body 

 of this world's professorial brethren, you are a man 

 of theories and love not to see them shaken, there 

 may come a pang and a flash of resentment. Yet 

 what you take so ill, or will not take at all from your 

 fellow-professor, from Nature's self you must take, 

 though it shatter the work of your years, and blow 

 down the wind all your most cherished convictions. 

 If that befalls your life-work, woe betide you ; yet 

 courage remains. There is the discipline of pain, 

 the discipline of grief, the discipline of failure ; and 

 the greatest of these is the last. 



Do not question the sincerity of this still hour 

 under the sky ; be sure that the day is right and 



