88 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



tion for business or study. It is not wMle surrounded 

 by pleasures of any kind, that we are most capable of 

 reflecting upon them, or describing their influence; as 

 the act of thinking upon them requires a temporary 

 suspension of our enjoyments. Hence in winter we 

 can most easily describe the charms of spring, when 

 the task becomes a pleasing occupation, by reviving the 

 scenes of recollected nature, and thus affording us a 

 retrospective joy, blended with a foretaste of that which 

 is 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 one to 

 come forth and partake of the pleasures they proffer, it 

 is difficult to sit down, apart from these delights, to the 

 comparatively dull task of describing them. 



Spring is, therefore, the inspiring season of enterprise, 

 rather than of poetry, as instead of telling of joys that 

 are past, it unfolds the promise of future happiness. It 

 is not the season of thought, inasmuch as it is not the 

 occasion of melancholy and retrospection. It is the 

 time for the lover of nature to collect his observations, 

 to improve his taste for the beauties that are spread be- 

 fore him, and to partake of the entertainment that is 

 provided for him ; but winter is the season for reflecting 

 upon these observations, and for descanting on pleas- 

 ures that are past. In autumn, likewise, we cast mel- 

 ancholy and wishful thoughts back upon the beautiful 

 months that have just fled, with feelings more alive to 

 their charms than when they were present with us, ren- 

 dering every circumstance and every eflTort of the mind 

 agreeable, that serves to revive them distinctly in our 

 memory. Thus during the absence of friends, we be- 

 come more sensible of the happiness their presence 



