Why, I would let them
crawl up my arm in those happy days of old, and now I cannot even
endure to have them dropping gently into my hair. And I should
not know what to say to a chrysalis.
There are great and good people who know all about solstices and
zeniths, and they can tell you just why it is that 24th June is
so much hotter and longer than 24th December--why it is so in
England, I should say. For I believe (and they will correct me if
I am wrong) that at the equator the days and nights are always of
equal length. This must make calling almost an impossibility, for
if one cannot say to one's hostess, "How quickly the days are
lengthening (or drawing in)," one might as well remain at home.
"How stationary the days are remaining" might pass on a first
visit, but the old inhabitants would not like it rubbed into
them. They feel, I am sure, that however saddening a Midsummer
Day may be, an unchanging year is much more intolerable. One can
imagine the superiority of a resident who lived a couple of miles
off the equator, and took her visitors proudly to the end of the
garden where the seasons were most mutable. There would be no
bearing with her.
In these circumstances I refuse to be depressed. I console myself
with the thought that if 25th June is the beginning of winter, at
least there is a next summer to which I may look forward. Next
summer anything may happen.
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