But that is not all; not only in religion is it that we are more often Wintry-hearted than May-hearted. I have heard of an artist who used sometimes to keep his sitter waiting a whole morning, and at last send him away, unable to _win_ the right humour to his heart, and feeling that his work would not be well done if he _forced_ it. And in reading Haydon’s life you may often find traces of how difficult is this mood to attract, when it has not a mind to come. So, too, in composition, whether grave or light, how different a thing it is, according to our mood! How delicious a thing is it when the soul has a May-day, and when the pen cannot overtake the mind! when “Thought leaps out to wed with thought, Ere thought can wed itself with speech!” when ideas throng “Glad and thick, As leaves upon a tree in primrose time!” when we seem to see, “Smiling upward from the page, The image of the thought within the soul!” But these times, at least after one has written a good deal, are comparatively rare times, and it is more often February than May within us. A subject that seemed full of leaf when it occurred to the mind some weeks ago, in a May-day mood, stands often a stripped bare Winter tree when we sit down to work it out. Yes, in most of the business of life that is not mere routine and machine-work, no doubt the soul has its May-days--its times of _being in the humour_ for its work, and of doing that work easily and glibly. How many a Clergyman would endorse this, merely in the every-day case of taking a class in his school! Words, earnest and abundant and interesting, throng forth at one time; at another, how bare the mind, and how unready the tongue! And now, to what do these thoughts lead us? I think to two considerations--one of warning, one of encouragement. The warning is an obvious one, and yet one much and often neglected. Let such times of warmth and light and glow and possession of blossom be not only _enjoyed_ but _employed_. The soul’s Flower-time should never be allowed to pass away _without having left some noble fruit set_. It is common-place to repeat that the May-days of the soul are most abundant and most glowing in youth, the May-time of life. And, in connection with this whole subject, I quote, with an addition, Longfellow’s verse:-- “Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme, Enjoy thy youth: it will not stay; Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, For oh! it is not always May.”