THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE SEASONS— SPRING. 



297 



at these large effects will fail to discover ; such is the 

 correspondence between some of the tints of the open- 

 ing bud and the dying leaf. It is a pleasing thought that 

 the dying year is thus suggestive of the year to be born. 

 The October hue of the maple is soon rivaled by the 

 tints of its own tender spathes when they first open 

 beneath the genial influence of April's sun and showers ; 

 the color of a maple wood in early spring differs only in 

 degree, not in kind, from that of late autumn ; and the 

 axillary bud of the grape, as it unfolds warily from the 

 parent stem, flashes at us the August hue of the gum 

 tree and borrows from October the purple bloom and 

 promise of its own ripened fruit. 



Indeed, what we are accustomed to call the ' ' autumnal 

 tints " are not wholly lacking at any time throughout the 

 season of vegetation ; but when they hold only a subor- 

 dinate place in the general scheme of color for the day 

 or month, we are apt to lose sight of their values. Yet 

 they are the determining influence that relieves any land- 

 scape from the danger of becoming monotonous in tone, 

 and would be missed if absent from it. Aside from the 

 succession of what we commonly call the flowers — 

 although any bloom or blossom or portion of a plant 

 destined to produce seed is a flower — these tints abound 

 in a clover-field in June, and surround in a hazy, 

 feathery fluff the ripening heads of herds-grass in the 

 later meadow, and abound in the creeping tendrils of 

 the woodbine in July, the while its own leaves, deepen- 

 ing from green to brown and red, forecast the autumn's 

 coming. Likewise certain plants, such as the golden- 

 rod and the aster, have lake-colored radical leaves in 

 early spring, and the under sides of strawberry leaves 

 have often the same deep hue, although we are accus- 

 tomed to think that it pertains to autumn rather than to 

 spring. So also the earliest tips of the grass-blades, 

 started into life by moisture rather than by light or 

 heat — rather, despite their absence — have first a saflron 

 hue which changes rapidly to the rosiest tints the palette 

 of nature can bestow. Thus we cannot generalize the 

 color, or rather, attribute of spring, or any season ; each 

 borrows something from the other, encroaches upon 

 its prerogative, laps over upon it ; yet each remains 

 broadly individual and cannot be mistaken, more than 

 the face of our nearest friend. 



We are accustomed to speak of looking for spring, of 

 searching for her as if she were something elusive, eva- 

 sive ; of no other season do we speak or think thus. 

 The discovery of the first sign of spring is a personal 

 triumph. It may vanish again tomorrow before some 

 belated north-wind, but we have seen her, have touched 

 the hem of her garment, and thenceforth she is ours. 



There are two ways of seeking her. One is to go 

 abroad with the poet and see with his eyes ; thus we 

 shall find singing birds and flowers, and sweet scents in 

 the air, and velvety turf under foot, and the murmur of 

 running brooks ; but, except with the very truest poets, 

 we shall rarely find the spring. The poet so idealizes 

 nature that he fails to observe that the very first flower 

 comes to us with so unpleasant a name as skunk-cabbage. 



and passes it by for the sake of euphony. Nor does he 

 perceive that the first grass starts where the ground is 

 cold and wet ; it suits his mood and his muse better to 

 find it upon some warm southern hillside, where they and 

 the grass may be nourished together by the soft south- 

 winds. Yet if we are looking for it in sufficient quanti- 

 ties to give physiognomic value to the landscape, we will 

 go to the hill-side ; there the grass comes first in big 

 green patches, making bright relief against the sombre 

 brown of last year's dead nerbage. 



The better way to find the first sign of spring is to go 

 alone — early, or the season will be before us — and seek 

 her in some low meadow where a creek finds its way be- 

 tween willow-fringed banks. Here spring comes, be- 

 fore the last film of ice has left the edge of the water. 

 Here the willow-catkins push out and make a bright 

 glint of new color across the meadow, shining with a 

 yellow radiance in the clear air. At the feet of the wil- 

 lows, where the marsh grass lies sere from last year's 

 dying, we may push away the snow that yet lingers in 

 some moist hollow that it has sheltered all the winter 

 through, and there find our earliest bit of verdure — a 

 tuft of grass. This might not seem of great value in 

 mid-summer, but it is treasure-trove now. It is the 

 first characteristic bit of the season. Fruits and flowers 

 come to us now from the hot-house, out of time and 

 rhyme with nature : but grass, the most beautiful and 

 universal of plants, has happily not yet become a forced 

 exotic to mock us from the flower-shops with false vis- 

 ions of the season. 



A chief characteristic of the spring and our search for 

 her out-of-doors is that our satisfaction and delight de- 

 pend upon such small things that the appetite is not 

 cloyed, but rather whetted on toward further quest by 

 each new discovery. In summer we may drink our fill 

 of nature at a single draught, and in autumn she throws 

 at our feet such a fullness of riches that all zest is taken 

 from the search. The first flower, the first expanding 

 bud, the first notice of robin or blue-bird all serve to 

 make us only the more emulous to discover other signs 

 of the reason of which these are the precursors, and with 

 heightsening elation we run along the ascending scale 

 until confronted by the full blown perfection of sum- 

 mer. Not thus do we look for the last flower, the last 

 leaf, the last song bird in autumn. 



There are characteristics of spring that appeal to every 

 sense ; and I think that were I deprived of all but one — 

 and that remaining might be any one — I would be ena- 

 bled by its exercise alone to distinguish this from any 

 other season. To the eye it is discovered by color and 

 form ; to the ear, by the notes of the birds and the chirp- 

 ing of insects ; to the sense of feeling, by the warm south 

 wind, the springiness of the turf under foot, the velvety 

 softness of twig and bud and grass ; to the sense of smell 

 by all sweet odors of the earth and growing things ; to 

 the taste, in the bark of birch and sassafras and the sap 

 of the maple. Our compensation for winter lies in the 

 resurrection of the spring-time ; it is the synonym of 

 awakening life ; this is the pervading thought with which 



