Then he looks as
though he had his brief season, and ceases for a while to seem strange.
It is no wonder that we should try to attribute the times of the year to
children; their likeness is so rife among annuals. For man and woman we
are naturally accustomed to a longer rhythm; their metre is so obviously
their own, and of but a single stanza, without repetition, without
renewel, without refrain. But it is by an intelligible illusion that we
look for a quick waxing and waning in the lives of young children--for a
waxing that shall come again another time, and for a waning that shall
not be final, shall not be fatal. But every winter shows us how human
they are, and how they are little pilgrims and visitants among the things
that look like their kin. For every winter shows them free from the east
wind; more perfectly than their elders, they enclose the climate of life.
And, moreover, with them the climate of life is the climate of the spring
of life; the climate of a human March that is sure to make a constant
progress, and of a human April that never hesitates. The child "breathes
April and May"--an inner April and his own May.
The winter child looks so much the more beautiful for the season as his
most brilliant uncles and aunts look less well. He is tender and gay in
the east wind. Now more than ever must the lover beware of making a
comparison between the beauty of the admired woman and the beauty of a
child.
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