236 THE FRIENDSHIP OF NATURE 



zon, the sun, in the southwest, has now 

 reached its solstitial turning. 



Is winter the end or a clearer begin- 

 ning? The wind goes abroad and 

 drives the sound of the surf into the 

 pine tops, the blue jays have vanished. 

 The owl still keeps in his cover, but the 

 titmouse creeps closer and nods gaily. 

 Can this crystalline transformation be 

 the year in its dotage, a vague second 

 childhood? Age and winter should 

 take for their sign the witch-hazel, the 

 flower of unconquered hope. There is 

 no winter or age for the heart that feels 

 Nature's throbbings, and crowns the 

 earth' s beauty with human brotherhood. 

 White-haired frost is not decay's grim- 

 visaged servant, but a transmuter, wear- 

 ing invisible on its breast the circle 

 sign of the whole plan. 



Our Dr. Holmes, a little past his 

 seventieth birthday, wrote in a letter 



