WINTER, 11 



structed for the performance of given functions may 

 collapse and go to decay, but the life which acts 

 through them never ceases for one instant. Sleep in 

 the animal, leaflessness in the plant and tree, indicate 

 only that nature is gathering up her strength for new 

 movements ; that which seems cessation is the transit 

 from a weaker to a more powerful state. Winter, in 

 fact, is the necessity of all beginning, as summer is 

 the necessity of all ripeness and perfection. 



I have often been struck in winter by the peculiar 

 beauty, then revealed, in the architecture of the oak 

 as compared with the poplar, of the elm as compared 

 with the larch, and so on, all through the long list of 

 the vegetable patriarchs. Winter is needed in order 

 that we may have their various figures truly disclosed, 

 since in summer all is concealed by masses of foliage ; 

 and it is not the least among the many solaces of 

 drear December, that the manly dignity of one kind of 

 tree shall be brought into contrast with the feminine 

 gracefulness of another, and that we shall be reminded 

 by these disclosures, that truth abides not in apparel, 

 but in those inner lineaments of things which in the 

 heyday of excitement and pleasure, we are apt to for- 

 get. In summer, we overlook ; the glory of the world 

 encircles us, and we are content ; in the summer of 

 life, similarly circled by its charms, we are as apt to 

 forget that all is passing away ; we eat and drink and 

 are merry. Thanks, then, be to God, that secular 



