Thus, then, our sober thought concludes. But still, to our fancy the year seems desolate, forlorn, and sad; the fog is a chill and heavy depression; the rain sobs out its heart in tears; the wind-- “Like a broken worldling wails, And the flying gold of the ruined woodland drives through the air.” In poetry, and even in prose, we do not most readily think of the year, between November and Christmas, as asleep after work done, but as stagnant, and brooding in despair over a wasted life and lost opportunities, and hopes withered and gone by. Why does this aspect arise most naturally to our mind? for no such thought would trouble that of a contemplating angel. Well, the truth is, that _we_ look through coloured glass, tinting with a hue of sadness to the mind’s eye things not really sad. We see the leaves circle down, and straightway are reminded that-- “We all do fade as a leaf.” We see the mists gather and the rain descend, and no one but can recall heavy mists of sorrow that rose over the heart’s landscape, and glooming clouds that burst in bitter tears. And the wind gets its wail as it passes through our heart, and not from the bare boughs of the watered resting trees. And we choose to represent the year as thoughtlessly glad and wastefully profuse in its lost seasons, and as _now_ broken-hearted and despairing; because this is so common a case, if not in our own experience, yet in the history of so very many about us. We cannot but think how this idle business and succeeding gloom is indeed to be found too often, too often, in the year of man’s life. Flowers, when he is young; flowers, in life’s prime; flowers, in its Autumn; and what will ye do in the end thereof? What, when the fogs and the frosts have come, and the evil days are close at hand, and the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them? Where is the secure store, the treasure laid up in the safe garner, to cheer the heart when the sap has gone down for this year, and the fields are blank, and growth is stayed?