The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
How different in the effects they produce on the heart, and in the
sentiments they awaken, are the various seasons of the year in India to
the same in our native land. How sweetly speaks the changing year to
the minds of the unsophisticated and innocent of England's children!
Are their hearts oppressed by misfortune? with the spring they revive,
and, like nature, shake off the torpor into which, overcome by their
sorrows, they were sinking, while Hope, with the flowers, buds once
more sweetly forth. The summer sun brings with it cheerfulness and
joy; hearts and hopes together expand; they watch, with anxiety and
pleasure, the ripening of the dainty fruits, which promise in autumn to
replenish their board; they sport in the new-mown and perfume-exhaling
fields; they bathe in the clear, unruffled stream, and feel convinced
that earth has not yet been despoiled by sin of all its charms, that
there are pursuits at once pure and delightful, that man is not made
to mourn but to rejoice, and that in nature, the beneficence of the
Deity is demonstrated. Even stern winter has something pleasant in his
countenance, and is kind enough to make them sometimes long for his
return while enjoying the smiles of seasons more congenial; for they
with rapture anticipate a meeting with the friends whom he assembles;
the sweet congratulations, the merry tales, the laughter-exciting
songs, which will then burst forth from affectionate and happy hearts,
and make the blazing hearth a scene of unalloyed ecstasy. But it is not
thus in the arid and joyless East. We watch the approach of spring with
apprehension, for it brings in its train disease and death; we shrink,
and seek in the mountains a refuge from the fiery temper and scorching
breath of summer; autumn's gloom makes all nature distasteful to us;
and winter, though it affords a temporary relief from pain, is totally
unproductive of pleasure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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