A NOVEMBER ETCHING 



15 



street and the widening of another for a 

 short distance/^ I said. But Sir Joseph 

 frowned. ^'It doesn't do to think too much 

 of the cost/^ he said. ^'A city should be 

 willing to pay for improvements which 

 mean so much to the health and general 

 well-being of the community. When you 

 return to the United States/^ he con- 



cluded^ ^'our American cousins may not 

 consider that we are so far behind the 

 times after all, for I have never heard that 

 you have adopted municipal ownership in 

 the manner of the county council, or that 

 you have carried out any street improve- 

 ments on a very large scale. You must 

 tell them what we are doing here." 



A XOYE^^IBEE ETCHIXG 



'By Alice Brooks 



EACH of the months of the year, except Xovember, has had its quota of lovers. Even 

 March has the advantage of being able to borrow from April a promise of sun- 

 shine. Only Xovember is accounted wholly without charm. 

 Coming after the gay carnival of October's colors, its neutral gray tints seem even 

 more depressing than the actual change in temperature. It is like displacing a mas- 

 terpiece in oils with an etching of the same subject, and one must tirst accustom himself 

 to the change before the characteristic beauties of the etching grow each moment more 

 apparent. 



In the belief that Xovember had been maligned I set myself to study the view 

 from my favorite window in its latest presentation. I saw a willow-fringed brook, and, 

 beyond, a gently sloping hillside rising high to meet the sky line. The beauty of the 

 spring and summer, and even its winter aspect, had each appealed to me in turn, and 

 now I was resolved to study its Xovember setting. 



First the slow flowing stream, opaque and lusterless between its gray green banks; 

 then the withered grasses of the meadow 

 blending soft from cream to russet, lastly 

 the group of trees on the hilltop, each bar- 

 ren twig outlined sharply against the cold 

 sky, lacing and interlacing in a delicate 

 arabesque of beautiful design, and their 

 lower trunks backgrounded against a wall 

 dusk with age and creeping lichen. 



A sober picture truly, but a beautiful 

 one, too, if one can but forget the downy 

 pussy-willows and fairy tints of spring, 

 and' the crimson splendors of October. 

 And someone has forgotten them, for, 

 from beyond the wall, two figures rise, 

 and, with the unconscious insolence of 

 youth, take possession of the picture. 



They lean across the uneven wall top 

 and look — at each other ! But I know that 

 in their memories the Xovember landscape 

 will linger — not as a faultless etching, per- 

 haps, but as a part of a beautiful whole, the 

 visible sign of a supreme moment when 

 the world and life and love were theirs. 



