ranging a big railway accident or burning a London
store down, and the newspapers, in search of something to frighten us
now that the war is over, by referring to Germany's "hidden army" and
an unprecedentedly colossal strike in the New Year, the human spirit
soars above these things on the First of January, and Hope,
figuratively speaking, buys a "buzzer" and makes high holiday. Who
knows if the New Year may not be your year, your _lucky_ year? And in
this feeling you jump out of bed, clothe yourself in your "Gladdest
Rags," collect your "Goodest" intentions, and sally forth. Nobody
wishes you anything, it's true, but you wish yourself the moon, and in
wishing for it you somehow feel that the New Year will give it to you.

_February_

February is the month when, cold-red are the noses--and so (oh help!)
are the "toes-es." No one ever sings about February: scarcely anyone
speaks about It. It is indeed unspeakable. Its only benefit is that,
once every four years, it keeps people younger a day longer. If you're
thirty-nine, you're thirty-nine for an extra twenty-four hours, and at
that period of life you're glad of any small mercy. It is the month
when the new-rich depart to sun themselves in their new-found sun, and
the new-poor, and others who are quite used to poverty, swear at them
in secret. Oh, yes, indeed! If the Clerk of the Weather has a left
ear it must surely at this moment be as 'ot as 'ell! Nobody likes
February--it is the step-child of the months.

One simply lives through it as one lives through a necessary duty.
It's a month--and that's all. Thank Heaven! somebody once made it the
shortest! By the end of January most people have had more than enough
of the English Winter even if the English Winter thinks we can ever
have enough of it, and comes back saying "Hello!" to us right into
Summer, and starts ringing us up, as it were, to tell us it's coming
back again as early as October. Just as if we didn't know--just as if
we ever wanted to know! The English Summer is far more modest.
Usually it's gone before we have, so to speak, washed our hands, tidied
our hair, and dressed ourselves up to meet it. But Winter in England
not only comes before it is wanted, but outstays its welcome by weeks.
And of all the months it brings with it, February, though the shortest,
seems to linger longest. March may be colder, but the first day of
Spring is marked on its calendar; and we wait for it like