And how much lost fruit do we not owe to February! One feels--a
layman like myself feels--that it should be enough to have a
strawberry-bed, a peach-tree, a fig-tree. If these are not
enough, then the addition of a gardener should make the thing a
certainty. Yet how often will not a gardener refer one back to
February as the real culprit. The tree blossomed too early; the
late frosts killed it; in the annoyance of the moment one may
reproach the gardener for allowing it to blossom so prematurely,
but one cannot absolve February of all blame.
It is no good, then, for February to try to be spring; no hope
for her to please us by prolonging winter. What is left to her?
She cannot even give us the pleasure of the hairshirt. Did April
follow her, she could make the joys of that wonderful month even
keener for us by the contrast, but--she is followed by March.
What can one do with March? One does not wear a hair-shirt merely
to enjoy the pleasure of following it by one slightly less hairy.
Well, we may agree that February is no good. "Oh, to be out of
England now that February's here," is what Browning should have
said. One has no use for her in this country. Pope Gregory, or
whoever it was that arranged the calendar, must have had
influential relations in England who urged on him the need for
making February the shortest month of the year. Let us be
grateful to His Holiness that he was so persuaded.
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