Where the red-cheeked apple that hung on the bough and
the butterfly that fluttered in the sunshine? All, all are gone. "Tu-whit,
tu-whoo ... Tu-whit, tu-whoo ... Tu-whit, tu-whoo...."

A cheerless fellow. Some people find him an intolerable companion. I was
talking at dinner in London a few nights ago to a woman who has a house in
Sussex, and I found that she had not been there for some time.

"I used to find the owl endurable," said she, "but since the war I have
found him unbearable. He hoots all night and makes me so depressed that I
feel that I shall go mad."

"And so you come and listen to the owl in London?" I said.

"The owl in London?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "the owl that hoots in Carmelite Street and Printing House
Square."

"Ah," she said, "but he is such an absurd owl. Now the owl down in the
country is such a solemn creature."

"He says a very foolish thing
In such a solemn way,"

I murmured.

"Yes, but in the silence and the darkness there doesn't seem any answer to
him."

"Madame," I said, "if you will look up at the stars you will find a very
complete answer."

I confess that I find the owl not only tolerable but stimulating. I like to
hear the pessimist really let himself go. It is the nameless and unformed
fears of the mind that paralyse, but when my owl comes along and states the
position at its blackest I begin to cheer up and feel defiant and
combative. Is this the worst that can be said? Then let us see what the
best is, and set about accomplishing it. "The thing is impossible," said
the pessimist to Cobden. "Indeed," said that great man. "Then the sooner we
set about doing it the better." Oh, oh, say I to my owl, all is lost, is
it? You wait till the dawn comes, and hear what that little chap in the red
waistcoat has to say about it. He's got quite another tale to tell, and
it's a much more likely tale than yours. I shall go to bed and leave you to
Gummidge in the trees until the sun comes up and tells you what a dismal
fraud you are.

"Tu-whit, tu-whoo," hoots the owl back at me.

Yes, my dear sir, but you said that last night, and you have been saying it
every night I have known you, and always the sun comes up and the spring
comes round again and the flowers bloom, and the fields are golden with
harvest.

"Tu-whit, tu-whoo."

Oh, bother you. You ought to be a _Daily Mail_ placard.

No doubt the owl is quite happy in his way. Louis XV. expressed the owlish
philo