On one of those fine days which the April of the other year meanly grudged1 us, a poet, flown with the acceptance of a quarter-page lyric2 by the real editor in the Study next door, came into the place where the Easy Chair sat rapt in the music of the elevated trains and the vision of the Brooklyn Bridge towers. "Era la stagione nella quale la rivestita terra, più che tutto l' altro anno, si mostra bella," he said, without other salutation, throwing his soft gray hat on a heap of magazines and newspapers in the corner, and finding what perch3 he could for himself on the window-sill.
"What is that?" he of the Easy Chair gruffly demanded; he knew perfectly4 well, but he liked marring the bloom on a fellow-creature's joy by a show of savage5 ignorance.
"It's the divine beginning of Boccaccio's 'Fiammetta,' it is the very soul of spring; and it is so inalienably of Boccaccio's own time and tongue and sun and air that there is no turning it into the language of another period or climate. What would you find to thrill you in, 'It was the season in which the reapparelled earth, more than in all the other year, shows herself fair'? The rhythm is lost; the flow, sweet as the first runnings of the maple6 where the woodpecker has tapped it, stiffens7 into sugar, the liquid form is solidified8 into the cake adulterated with glucose9, and sold for a cent as the pure Vermont product."
As he of the Easy Chair could not deny this, he laughed recklessly. "I understood what your passage from Boccaccio meant, and why you came in here praising spring in its words. You are happy because you have sold a poem, probably for more than it is worth. But why do you praise spring? What do you fellows do it for? You know perfectly well that it is the most capricious, the most treacherous10, the most delusive11, deadly, slatternly, down-at-heels, milkmaid-handed season of the year, without decision of character or fixed12 principles, and with only the vaguest raw-girlish ideals, a red nose between crazy smiles and streaming eyes. If it did not come at the end of winter, when people are glad of any change, nobody could endure it, and it would be cast neck and crop out of the calendar. Fancy spring coming at the end of summer! It would not be tolerated for a moment, with the contrast of its crude, formless beauty and the ripe loveliness of August. Every satisfied sense of happiness, secure and established, would be insulted by its haphazard13 promises made only to be broken. 'Rather,' the outraged14 mortal would say, 'the last tender hours of autumn, the first deathful-thrilling snowfall, with all the thoughts of life wandering flake-like through the dim air—rather these than the recurrence15 of those impulses and pauses, those kisses frozen on the lips, those tender rays turning to the lash16 of sleet17 across the face of nature. No, the only advantage spring can claim over her sister seasons is her novelty, the only reason she can offer for being the spoiled child of the poets is that nobody but the poets could keep on fancying that there was any longer the least originality18 in her novelty."
The poet attempted to speak, in the little stop he of the Easy Chair made for taking breath, but he was not suffered to do so.
"Every atom of originality has been drained from the novelty of spring 'in the process of the suns,' and science is rapidly depriving her even of novelty. What was once supposed to be the spring grass has been found to be nothing but the fall grass, with the green stealing back into the withered19 blades. As for the spring lamb which used to crop the spring grass, it is now out of the cold-storage where the spring chicken and the new-laid eggs of yesteryear come from. It is said that there are no birds in last year's nests, but probably a careful examination would discover a plentiful20 hatch of nestlings which have hibernated21 in the habitations popularly supposed to be deserted22 the June before this. Early spring vegetables are in market throughout the twelvemonth, and spring flowers abound23 at the florists24' in December and January. There is no reason why spring should not be absorbed into winter and summer by some such partition as took place politically in the case of Poland. Like that unhappy kingdom, she has abused her independence and become a molestation25 and discomfort26 to the annual meteorology. As a season she is distinctly a failure, being neither one thing nor the other, neither hot nor cold, a very Laodicean. Her winds were once supposed to be very siccative, and peculiarly useful in drying the plaster in new houses; but now the contractors27 put in radiators28 as soon as the walls are up, and the work is done much better. As for the germinative29 force of her suns, in these days of intensive farming, when electricity is applied30 to the work once done by them, they can claim to have no virtue31 beyond the suns of July or August, which most seeds find effective enough. If spring were absorbed into summer, the heat of that season would be qualified32, and its gentler warmth would be extended to autumn, which would be prolonged into the winter. The rigors33 of winter would be much abated34, and the partition of spring among the other seasons would perform the mystic office of the Gulf35 Stream in ameliorating our climate, besides ridding us of a time of most tedious and annoying suspense36. And what should we lose by it?"
The poet seemed not to be answering the Easy Chair directly, but only to be murmuring to himself, "Youth."
"Youth! Youth!" the Easy Chair repeated in exasperation37. "And what is youth?"
"The best thing in the world."
"For whom is it the best thing?"
This question seemed to give the poet pause. "Well," he said, finally, with a not very forcible smile, "for itself."
"Ah, there you are!" he of the Easy Chair exclaimed; but he could not help a forgiving laugh. "In a way you are right. The world belongs to youth, and so it ought to be the best thing for itself in it. Youth is a very curious thing, and in that it is like spring, especially like the spring we have just been having, to our cost. It is the only period of life, as spring is the only season of the year, that has too much time on its hands. Yet it does not seem to waste time, as age does, as winter does; it keeps doing something all the while. The things it does are apparently38 very futile39 and superfluous40, some of them, but in the end something has been accomplished41. After a March of whimsical suns and snows, an April of quite fantastical frosts and thaws42, and a May, at least partially43, of cold mists and parching44 winds, the flowers, which the florists have been forcing for the purpose, are blooming in the park; the grass is green wherever it has not had the roots trodden out of it, and a filmy foliage45, like the soft foulard tissues which the young girls are wearing, drips from the trees. You can say it is all very painty, the verdure; too painty; but you cannot reject the picture because of this little mannerism46 of the painter. To be sure, you miss the sheeted snows and the dreamy weft of leafless twigs47 against the hard, blue sky. Still, now it has come, you cannot deny that the spring is pretty, or that the fashionable colors which it has introduced are charming. It is said that these are so charming that a woman of the worst taste cannot choose amiss among them. In spite of her taste, her hat comes out a harmonic miracle; her gown, against all her endeavors, flows in an exquisite48 symphony of the tender audacities49 of tint50 with which nature mixes her palette; little notes of chiffon, of tulle, of feather, blow all about her. This is rather a medley51 of metaphors52, to which several arts contribute, but you get my meaning?" In making this appeal, he of the Easy Chair saw in the fixed eye of the poet that remoteness of regard which denotes that your listener has been hearing very little of what you have been saying.
"Yes," the poet replied with a long breath, "you are right about that dreamy weft of leafless twigs against the hard, blue sky; and I wonder if we quite do justice to the beauty of winter, of age, we poets, when we are so glad to have the spring come."
"I don't know about winter," he of the Easy Chair said, "but in an opera which the English Lord Chamberlain provisionally suppressed, out of tenderness for an alliance not eventually or potentially to the advantage of these States, Mr. William Gilbert has done his duty to the decline of life, where he sings,
'There is beauty in extreme old age;
There's a fascination53 frantic54
In a ruin that's romantic'
Or, at least no one else has said so much for 'that time of life,' which another librettist55 has stigmatized56 as
'Bare, ruined choirs57, where late the sweet birds sang.'"
"Yes, I know," the poet returned, clinging to the thread of thought on which he had cast himself loose. "But I believe a great deal more could be said for age by the poets if they really tried. I am not satisfied of Mr. Gilbert's earnestness in the passage you quote from the 'Mikado,' and I prefer Shakespeare's 'bare, ruined choirs.' I don't know but I prefer the hard, unflattering portrait which Hamlet mockingly draws for Polonius, and there is something almost caressing58 in the notion of 'the lean and slippered59 pantaloon.' The worst of it is that we old fellows look so plain to one another; I dare say young people don't find us so bad. I can remember from my own youth that I thought old men, and especially old women, rather attractive. I am not sure that we elders realize the charm of a perfectly bald head as it presents itself to the eye of youth. Yet, an infant's head is often quite bald."
"Yes, and so is an egg," the Easy Chair retorted, "but there is not the same winning appeal in the baldness of the superannuated60 bird which has evolved from it—eagle or nightingale, parrot or
Many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home.
Tennyson has done his best in showing us venerable in his picture of
'the Ionian father of the rest:
A million wrinkles carved his silver skin,
A hundred winters snowed upon his breast.'
But who would not rather be Helen than Homer, her face launching a thousand ships and burning the topless tower of Ilion—fairer than the evening air and simply but effectively attired61 in the beauty of a thousand stars? What poet has ever said things like that of an old man, even of Methuselah?"
"Yes," the poet sighed. "I suppose you are partly right. Meteorology certainly has the advantage of humanity in some things. We cannot make much of age here, and hereafter we can only conceive of its being turned into youth. Fancy an eternity62 of sensibility!"
"No, I would rather not!" he of the Easy Chair returned, sharply. "Besides, it is you who are trying to make age out a tolerable, even a desirable thing."
"But I have given it up," the poet meekly63 replied. "The great thing would be some rearrangement of our mortal conditions so that once a year we could wake from our dream of winter and find ourselves young. Not merely younger, but young—the genuine article. A tree can do that, and does it every year, until after a hundred years, or three hundred, or a thousand, it dies. Why should not a man, or, much more importantly, a woman, do it? I think we are very much scanted64 in that respect."
"My dear fellow, if you begin fault-finding with creation, there will be no end to it. It might be answered that, in this case, you can walk about and a tree cannot; you can call upon me and a tree cannot. And other things. Come! the trees have not got it all their own way. Besides, imagine the discomforts65 of a human springtime, blowing hot and blowing cold, freezing, thawing66, raining, and drouthing, and never being sure whether we are young or old, May or December. We should be such nuisances to one another that we should ask the gods to take back their gift, and you know very well they cannot."
"Our rejuvenescence would be a matter of temperament67, not temperature," the poet said, searching the air hopefully for an idea. "I have noticed this spring that the isothermal line is as crooked68 as a railroad on the map of a rival. I have been down in New Hampshire since I saw you, and I found the spring temperamentally as far advanced there as here in New York. Of course not as far advanced as in union Square, but quite as far as in Central Park. Between Boston and Portsmouth there were bits of railroad bank that were as green as the sward beside the Mall, and every now and then there was an enthusiastic maple in the wet lowlands that hung the air as full of color as any maple that reddened the flying landscape when I first got beyond the New York suburbs on my way north. At Portsmouth the birds were singing the same songs as in the Park. I could not make out the slightest difference."
"With the same note of nervous apprehension69 in them?"
"I did not observe that. But they were spring songs, certainly."
"Then," the Easy Chair said, "I would rather my winter were turned into summer, or early autumn, than spring, if there is going to be any change of the mortal conditions. I like settled weather, the calm of that time of life when the sins and follies70 have been committed, the passions burned themselves out, and the ambitions frustrated71 so that they do not bother, the aspirations72 defeated, the hopes brought low. Then you have some comfort. This turmoil73 of vernal striving makes me tired."
"Yes, I see what you mean," the poet assented74. "But you cannot have the seasons out of their order in the rearrangement of the mortal conditions. You must have spring and you must have summer before you can have autumn."
"Are those the terms? Then I say, Winter at once! Winter is bad enough, but I would not go through spring again for any—In winter you can get away from the cold, with a good, warm book, or a sunny picture, or a cozy75 old song, or a new play; but in spring how will you escape the rawness if you have left off your flannels76 and let out the furnace? No, my dear friend, we could not stand going back to youth every year. The trees can, because they have been used to it from the beginning of time, but the men could not. Even the women——"
At this moment a beatific77 presence made itself sensible, and the Easy Chair recognized the poet's Muse78, who had come for him. The poet put the question to her. "Young?" she said. "Why, you and I are always young, silly boy! Get your hat, and come over to Long Island City with me, and see the pussy-willows along the railroad-banks. The mosquitoes are beginning to sing in the ditches already."
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1
grudged
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| 怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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stiffens
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| （使）变硬，（使）强硬( stiffen的第三人称单数 ) | |
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solidified
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| （使）成为固体，（使）变硬，（使）变得坚固( solidify的过去式和过去分词 )； 使团结一致； 充实，巩固； 具体化 | |
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glucose
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| n.葡萄糖 | |
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treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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delusive
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| adj.欺骗的，妄想的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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recurrence
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| n.复发，反复，重现 | |
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lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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17
sleet
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| n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹 | |
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originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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19
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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hibernated
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| （某些动物）冬眠，蛰伏( hibernate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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23
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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florists
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| n.花商，花农，花卉研究者( florist的名词复数 ) | |
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25
molestation
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| n.骚扰，干扰，调戏；折磨 | |
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26
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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27
contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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28
radiators
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| n.（暖气设备的）散热器( radiator的名词复数 )；汽车引擎的冷却器，散热器 | |
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germinative
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| adj.发芽的，有发育力的 | |
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30
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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32
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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33
rigors
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| 严格( rigor的名词复数 )； 严酷； 严密； （由惊吓或中毒等导致的身体）僵直 | |
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34
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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36
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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37
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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38
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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40
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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41
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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42
thaws
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| n.（足以解冻的）暖和天气( thaw的名词复数 )；（敌对国家之间）关系缓和v.（气候）解冻( thaw的第三人称单数 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化 | |
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43
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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44
parching
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| adj.烘烤似的，焦干似的v.（使）焦干， （使）干透( parch的现在分词 )；使（某人）极口渴 | |
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45
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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46
mannerism
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| n.特殊习惯，怪癖 | |
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twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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49
audacities
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| n.大胆( audacity的名词复数 )；鲁莽；胆大妄为；鲁莽行为 | |
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50
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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51
medley
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| n.混合 | |
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metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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53
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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librettist
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| n.(歌剧、音乐剧等的)歌词作者 | |
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stigmatized
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| v.使受耻辱，指责，污辱( stigmatize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
choirs
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| n.教堂的唱诗班( choir的名词复数 )；唱诗队；公开表演的合唱团；（教堂）唱经楼 | |
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caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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slippered
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| 穿拖鞋的 | |
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superannuated
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| adj.老朽的，退休的；v.因落后于时代而废除，勒令退学 | |
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61
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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63
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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64
scanted
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| 不足的，缺乏的( scant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discomforts
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| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
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66
thawing
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| n.熔化，融化v.（气候）解冻( thaw的现在分词 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化 | |
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67
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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68
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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71
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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72
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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73
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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74
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
cozy
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| adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的 | |
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76
flannels
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| 法兰绒男裤； 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 ) | |
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77
beatific
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| adj.快乐的，有福的 | |
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78
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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