POETS and careless, happy fellows like that may say what they like for
the spring, but there are only two seasons in the year for children. The
parties of Christmas appealed to our senses in a hundred pleasant ways.
They shone with Jack Frost and Chinese lanterns and the gay gelatine from
crackers; they compressed our limbs in the pride of new, uncomfortable
suits and tight, shiny shoes; they tasted of burnt raisins and orange
jelly; they sang with frosty carols and sensible tunes and the agreeable
din of penny musical instruments; they smelt of Christmas-tree candles
and tangerine oranges. Then there were pantomimes and large silver
pieces from the pockets of millionaire uncles, and if all else failed,
the possibility of snow. Certainly there was nothing the matter with
winter.
Summer, too, had its fierce, immeasurable joys. This was the season of
outdoor sports, hunting and boating and digging holes to New Zealand.
There was cricket, real cricket, which means that you are out if you hit
the ball into the next garden, and that you stop playing if you break a
window, and there was hurling of javelins in wild shrubberies, and
dabbling in silver brooks for elusive minnows. Later there would come
long, adventurous journeys in railway-trains, when, like wise travellers,
we would cuddle provisions of buns and pears and tepid sandwiches in our
laps. Our legs would be so stiff when we reached our destination that we
would totter on the platform like old men, and our eyes would be weary
with watching the fleeting world. But as the cab crept up the gritty
hills we would see the ocean waiting for us to come and play with it, and
everything else in life would be forgotten. The country, with its
apple-trees and its pigs and its secret places, was not to be despised,
but it was the sea that led us home to our dreams.
Yet possibly the finest thing that the summer had to give us was the
healthy, joyous sense of fatigue that comes from games. It was pleasant
to drop on the lawn when cricket was over, and stay there, not wholly
displeased with the scent of the flowers, looking into the blue sky until
the gnats drove you in to tea. It was pleasant to lie on the beach, with
the heat creeping up and down your face, and to let the sand trickle
through your fingers, while the long waves whispered out to sea. It was
pleasant to drowse in the hay after hunting buffaloes all the sunny
afternoon. It was only at such moments, when the air had a savour of
sleep, that we really felt conscious of youth as a desirable possession.
A child’s year would be divided abruptly into winter and summer, for
youth is impatient of compromise, but as things are, there are spring and
autumn to be reckoned with. For autumn, there is not much to be said.
There were nuts and blackberries, and the sweet-scented fallen leaves, in
which we would paddle up to our knees. But the seaside brown was wearing
off our legs, and night came so soon and with so harsh and boisterous a
note. It was not bad when we happened to be feeling very brave to lie
awake at night and hear the branches screaming when the wind hurt them.
The sheer discomfort of the outer world made bed delicious. But the
necessary courage for this point of view was rare, and normally we would
wish the nights quieter and less exciting. The autumn wind was for ever
fumbling at our nursery windows like a burglar, or creeping along the
passages like a supernatural thing. Sometimes our hearts stopped beating
while we listened.
But of all the seasons of the year, spring is most oppressive to the
spirit of childhood. The dear, artificial things that had made the
winter lovely were gone, and the pastoral delights of the summer were
still to come, yet Nature called us forth to a muddy, unfinished world.
Then was the season of the official walk, a dreary traffic on nice, clean
pavements, that placed everything in the world worth walking to out of
bounds. A cold wind without the compensating advantage of snow would
swing round the corners of streets, and we would feel as if we were
wearing the ears and noses of other people. When we were not quarrelling
we were sulking, and each was equally fatal, for the Olympians only
needed a pretext to make our days bitter with iron and quinine. And our
quarrels, that at kinder seasons of the year were the regretted accidents
of moments, lingered now from day to day, and became the source of fierce
and lonely pride. If one of us, released for a minute from the wearing
of the world’s woes, made timid efforts to arrange a concerted game, he
would become the object of general suspicion, and his sociability would
be regarded as a hypocritical effort to win the favour of the grown-up
folk. The correct attitude was one of surly aloofness that spluttered
once or twice a day into tearful rebellion against the interference of
the authorities. It is insulting to give a man medicine when he tells
you that he wishes he were dead.
Of course, underlying these disorders was just that dim spirit of
disquiet that has made this season of the year notable for the production
of lyric poetry. We had no means of expressing the thing that troubled
our blood. Indeed, we ourselves did not know what was the matter, though
this ignorance did not make our discomfort less. Time, who in the glare
of a Christmas party or on the shore of a summer sea could run faster
than we, seemed to take a spiteful pleasure in lingering in this
unattractive place. And although our attitude towards life appeared to
have been determined for us by Fate, when the long day ended and we
thought over things in bed, we had not even the satisfaction of being
proud of our day’s work. We would vow silently to our pillows that
things should go better to-morrow, but alas! there might be many morrows
before summer brought peace to our blood.
It is not only children whom the spring winds stir to madness, but a man
has striven but poorly if he cannot contrive to bear in patience with
this vernal torment of living, or even to turn it to some useful purpose
in his work. But children, who can only express themselves in their
play, must pay for the joys of the coming summer in moods speechless and
almost too bitter for their years. In sympathy with all the green, quick
things of Nature, their blood is in a state of passionate unrest for
which their minds can supply no adequate reason, and they are unhappy in
consequence. But I am far from blaming the Olympians for the attitude
they adopted in this difficult business. They kept a wise eye on our
health, and if our naughtiness became outrageous, we were punished. For
the rest, as they could not give us lips of silver and a pipe of gold
with which to chant the amazing gladness of the spring, I do not see what
they could do.