Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Works of Charles Dudley WarnerWarner, Charles Dudley
General
Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Works of Charles Dudley Warner
Warner, Charles Dudley
Quotations
Then follows a day of bright sun and blue sky. The birds open the
morning with a lively chorus. In spite of Auster, Euroclydon, low
pressure, and the government bureau, things have gone forward. By the
roadside, where the snow has just melted, the grass is of the color of
emerald. The heart leaps to see it. On the lawn there are twenty
robins, lively, noisy, worm-seeking. Their yellow breasts contrast with
the tender green of the newly-springing clover and herd's-grass. If they
would only stand still, we might think the dandelions had blossomed. On
an evergreen-bough, looking at them, sits a graceful bird, whose back is
bluer than the sky. There is a red tint on the tips of the boughs of the
hard maple. With Nature, color is life. See, already, green, yellow,
blue, red! In a few days--is it not so?--through the green masses of the
trees will flash the orange of the oriole, the scarlet of the tanager;
perhaps tomorrow.
But, in fact, the next day opens a little sourly. It is almost clear
overhead: but the clouds thicken on the horizon; they look leaden; they
threaten rain. It certainly will rain: the air feels like rain, or snow.
By noon it begins to snow, and you hear the desolate cry of the phoebe-
bird. It is a fine snow, gentle at first; but it soon drives in swerving
lines, for the wind is from the southwest, from the west, from the
northeast, from the zenith (one of the ordinary winds of New England),
from all points of the compass. The fine snow becomes rain; it becomes
large snow; it melts as it falls; it freezes as it falls. At last a
storm sets in, and night shuts down upon the bleak scene.
During the night there is a change. It thunders and lightens. Toward
morning there is a brilliant display of aurora borealis. This is a sign
of colder weather.
The gardener is in despair; so is the sportsman. The trout take no
pleasure in biting in such weather.
Paragraphs appear in the newspapers, copied from the paper of last year,
saying that this is the most severe spring in thirty years. Every one,
in fact, believes that it is, and also that next year the spring will be
early. Man is the most gullible of creatures.
And with reason: he trusts his eyes, and not his instinct. During this
most sour weather of the year, the anemone blossoms; and, almost
immediately after, the fairy pencil, the spring beauty, the dog-tooth
violet, and the true violet. In clouds and fog, and rain and snow, and
all discouragement, Nature pushes on her forces with progressive haste
and rapidity. Before one is aware, all the lawns and meadows are deeply
green, the trees are opening their tender leaves. In a burst of sunshine
the cherry-trees are white, the Judas-tree is pink, the hawthorns give a
sweet smell. The air is full of sweetness; the world, of color.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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