All on a summer’s day!’
Now the labour of the husbandman recommences; and it is pleasant to watch (from your library-window) the plough-team moving almost imperceptibly along, upon the distant upland that the bare trees have disclosed to you.—Nature is as busy as ever, if not openly and obviously, secretly, and in the hearts of her sweet subjects the flowers; stirring them up to that rich rivalry of beauty which is to greet the first footsteps of spring, and teaching them to prepare themselves for her advent, as young maidens prepare, months beforehand, for the marriage festival of some dear friend.—If the flowers think and feel (and he who dares to say that they do not is either a fool or a philosopher—let him choose between the imputations!)—if the flowers think and feel, what a commotion must be working within their silent hearts, when the pinions of winter begin to grow, and indicate that he is at least meditating his flight. Then do they, too, begin to meditate on May-day, and think on the delight with which they shall once more breathe the fresh air, when they have leave to escape from their subterranean prisons; for now, towards the latter end of this month, they are all of them at least awake from their winter slumbers, and most are busily working at their gay toilets, and weaving their fantastic robes, and shaping their trim forms, and distilling their rich essences, and, in short, getting ready in all things, that they may be duly prepared to join the bright procession of beauty that is to greet and glorify the annual coming on of their sovereign lady, the spring. It is true none of all this can be seen. But what a race should we be, if we knew and cared to know of nothing, but what we can see and prove!”[50]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 39·35.