y into the
arms of a wet sweep.

After this, the idiotic hilarity of the spectators and the disreputable
appearance of the hat when recovered appear but of minor importance.

Altogether, what between March winds, April showers, and the entire
absence of May flowers, spring is not a success in cities. It is all
very well in the country, as I have said, but in towns whose population
is anything over ten thousand it most certainly ought to be abolished.
In the world's grim workshops it is like the children--out of place.
Neither shows to advantage amid the dust and din. It seems so sad to see
the little dirt-grimed brats try to play in the noisy courts and muddy
streets. Poor little uncared-for, unwanted human atoms, they are not
children. Children are bright-eyed, chubby, and shy. These are dingy,
screeching elves, their tiny faces seared and withered, their baby
laughter cracked and hoarse.

The spring of life and the spring of the year were alike meant to be
cradled in the green lap of nature. To us in the town spring brings but
its cold winds and drizzling rains. We must seek it among the leafless
woods and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors and the great still
hills, if we want to feel its joyous breath and hear its silent voices.
There is a glorious freshness in the spring there. The scurrying clouds,
the open bleakness, the rushing wind, and the clear bright air thrill
one with vague energies and hopes. Life, like the landscape around us,
seems bigger, and wider, and freer--a rainbow road leading to unknown
ends. Through the silvery rents that bar the sky we seem to catch a
glimpse of the great hope and grandeur that lies around this little
throbbing world, and a breath of its scent is wafted us on the wings of
the wild March wind.

Strange thoughts we do not understand are stirring in our hearts. Voices
are calling us to some great effort, to some mighty work. But we do not
comprehend their meaning yet, and the hidden echoes within us that would
reply are struggling, inarticulate and dumb.

We stretch our hands like children to the light, seeking to grasp we
know not what. Our thoughts, like the boys' thoughts in the Danish song,
are very long, long thoughts, and very vague; we cannot see their end.

It must be so. All thoughts that peer outside this narrow world cannot
be else than dim and shapeless. The thoughts that we can clearly grasp
are very little thoughts--that two and two make four-that when we