as made much of; whereas the kind that
was attained by the endeavour of true souls, and that had wear in it,
and that made things go right instead of tangling them up, was too much
like duty to make satisfactory reading for people of sentiment."--E. S.
MARTIN: My Cousin Anthony.

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is
another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.

The first day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not break
down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns the corner
of Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street. But the first spring day
is not on the time-table at all. It comes when it is ready, and in the
latitude of New York this is usually not till after All Fools' Day.

About this time,--

"When chinks in April's windy dome
Let through a day of June,
And foot and thought incline to roam,
And every sound's a tune,"--

it is the habit of the angler who lives in town to prepare for the
labours of the approaching season by longer walks or bicycle-rides in
the parks, or along the riverside, or in the somewhat demoralized
Edens of the suburbs. In the course of these vernal peregrinations and
circumrotations, I observe that lovers of various kinds begin to occupy
a notable place in the landscape.

The burnished dove puts a livelier iris around his neck, and practises
fantastic bows and amourous quicksteps along the verandah of the
pigeon-house and on every convenient roof. The young male of the human
species, less gifted in the matter of rainbows, does his best with a
gay cravat, and turns the thoughts which circulate above it towards the
securing or propitiating of a best girl.

The objects of these more or less brilliant attentions, doves and girls,
show a becoming reciprocity, and act in a way which leads us to infer
(so far as inferences hold good in the mysterious region of female
conduct) that they are not seriously displeased. To a rightly tempered
mind, pleasure is a pleasant sight. And the philosophic observer
who could look upon this spring spectacle of the lovers with any but
friendly feelings would be indeed what the great Dr. Samuel Johnson
called "a person not to be envied."

Far be it from me to fall into such a desiccated and supercilious mood.
My small olive-branch of fancy will be withered, in truth, and ready to
drop budless from the tree, when I cease to feel a mild delight in t