APRIL. 89 



afforded us; of the value of their friendship, the charms 

 of their society, and the dreariness of separation. 



As childhood is not always happy, the spriag is not 

 always cheerful ; and as youth is sometimes visited with 

 the sorrows and afflictions of later life, the vernal skies 

 are sometimes blackened with wintry tempests, and the 

 earth bound up with ices and frost. Even in the month 

 of April, the little flowers that are just peeping forth 

 from their winte^r coverts, are often greeted with snow 

 as well as sunshine. The chilly breezes from the ocean 

 are likewise a constant source of discomfort to the 

 dwellers on the coast. Yet with all these cheerless 

 winds, April is, in general, a delightful month, and the 

 annoyance of the sea-breezes is hardly felt, except by 

 invalids, or those who have been enervated by confine- 

 ment. An cast wind is not without its advantages to 

 the laboring man or the pedestrian. When accompa- 

 nied with sunshine, this is the only wind that is of such 

 an equable temperature as to admit of brisk exercise in 

 the open air at all times and seasons, without suffering 

 from the extremes of cold or heat. 



The ices which have bound the earth for half the year 

 are at length dissolved ; the mountain snows are spread 

 out in fertilizing lakes upon the plains, and the whole 

 vegetable world is awakening to a new and beautiful 

 resurrection. The crocus, the snowdrop, and the yellow 

 daffodil are already blooming in the gardens ; the eai-ly 

 blue violet spangles the southern slopes of the pastures, 

 the vernal saxifrage crowns the mossy surfaces of the 

 rocky hills, and here and there may be found a delicate 

 blossom of the early anemone, in the sunny places in 

 the oaken woods. The barren hills are velveted with 

 mosses of a perfect greenness, delicately shaded with a 

 profusion of glossy brown stems, like so many hairs, 



8* 



