LOVERS AND LANDSCAPE
"He insisted that the love that was of real value in the world was
n't interesting, and that the love that was interesting was n't
always admirable. Love that happened to a person like the measles
or fits, and was really of no particular credit to itself or its
victims, was the sort that got into the books and was made much of;
whereas the kind that was attained by the endeavour of true souls,
and that had wear in it, and that made things go right instead of
tangling them up, was too much like duty to make satisfactory
reading for people of sentiment."--E. S. MARTIN: My Cousin Anthony.
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is
another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a
month.
The first day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not
break down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns
the corner of Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street. But the first
spring day is not on the time-table at all. It comes when it is
ready, and in the latitude of New York this is usually not till
after All Fools' Day.
About this time,--
"When chinks in April's windy dome
Let through a day of June,
And foot and thought incline to roam,
And every sound's a tune,"--
it is the habit of the angler who lives in town to prepare for the
labours of the approaching season by longer walks or bicycle-rides
in the parks, or along the riverside, or in the somewhat demoralized
Edens of the suburbs. In the course of these vernal peregrinations
and circumrotations, I observe that lovers of various kinds begin to
occupy a notable place in the landscape.
The burnished dove puts a livelier iris around his neck, and
practises fantastic bows and amourous quicksteps along the verandah
of the pigeon-house and on every convenient roof. The young male of
the human species, less gifted in the matter of rainbows, does his
best with a gay cravat, and turns the thoughts which circulate above
it towards the securing or propitiating of a best girl.
The objects of these more or less brilliant attentions, doves and
girls, show a becoming reciprocity, and act in a way which leads us
to infer (so far as inferences hold good in the mysterious region of
female conduct) that they are not seriously displeased. To a
rightly tempered mind, pleasure is a pleasant sight. And the
philosophic observer who could look upon this spring spectacle of
the lovers with any but friendly feelings would be indeed what the
great Dr. Samuel Johnson called "a person not to be envied."
Far be it from me to fall into such a desiccated and supercilious
mood. My small olive-branch of fancy will be withered, in truth,
and ready to drop budless from the tree, when I cease to feel a mild
delight in the billings and cooings of the little birds that
separate from the flocks to fly together in pairs, or in the
uninstructive but mutually satisfactory converse which Strephon
holds with Chloe while they dally along the primrose path.
I am glad that even the stony and tumultuous city affords some
opportunities for these amiable observations. In the month of April
there is hardly a clump of shrubbery in the Central Park which will
not serve as a trysting-place for yellow warblers and catbirds just
home from their southern tours. At the same time, you shall see
many a bench, designed for the accommodation of six persons,
occupied at the sunset hour by only two, and apparently so much too
small for them that they cannot avoid a little crowding.
These are infallible signs. Taken in conjunction with the eruption
of tops and marbles among the small boys, and the purchase of
fishing-tackle and golf-clubs by the old boys, they certify us that
the vernal equinox has arrived, not only in the celestial regions,
but also in the heart of man.
I have been reflecting of late upon the relation of lovers to the
landscape, and questioning whether art has given it quite the same
place as that which belongs to it in nature. In fiction, for
example, and in the drama, and in music, I have some vague
misgivings that romantic love has come to hold a more prominent and
a more permanent position than it fills in real life.
This is dangerous ground to venture upon, even in the most modest
and deprecatory way. The man who expresses an opinion, or even a
doubt, on this subject, contrary to the ruling traditions, will have
a swarm of angry critics buzzing about him. He will be called a
heretic, a heathen, a cold-blooded freak of nature. As for the
woman who hesitates to subscribe all the thirty-nine articles of
romantic love, if such a one dares to put her reluctance into words,
she is certain to be accused either of unwomanly ambition or of
feminine disappointment.