Month

“ Control the year from June to May;
I’d have its glories ne’er decay,
Nor winter snows to strew them.
OCTOBER.
This golden month, with varied leaves,
So full of waning glories,
Adorns the groves that it bereaves,
And fills the woods with stories
[70] Of fleeting verdure, fading flowers—
Dying Nature’s empty bowers. ”

“ The first part of the month with us is generally bustling and busy, a great clatter and hustling while the shrieking winter is got away out of sight over the hills, a sweeping of the world clear for the marsh-marigolds and daffodils, a diligent making of room for the divine calms of May. ”

“ The sun crosses the line; the days grow a minute longer: spring will come by and by. But by what cruel irony was the month of March ever called spring?—March, which piles snow-storms and wind-storms on backs almost broken by endurance. The long agony of March and April is the breaking-point with many a delicate person who has borne pretty well the regular winter. ”

“ April is my natal month, and I am born again into new delight and new surprises at each return of it. Its name has an indescribable charm to me. Its two syllables are like the calls of the first birds,—like that of the phœbe-bird, or of the meadow-lark. Its very snows are fertilizing, and are called the poor man's manure.
Then its odors! I am thrilled by its fresh and indescribable odors,—the perfume of the bursting sod, of the quickened roots and rootlets, of the mould under the leaves, of the fresh furrows. No other month has odors like it. ”

“ March is a month when the needle of my nature dips towards the country. I am away, greeting everything as it wakes out of winter sleep, stretches arms upward and legs downward, and drinks goblet after goblet of young sunshine. ”

“ While the general character of the month is much the same the country over,—showing dull grey tones of sky, abundant rains that penetrate man as they do the earth; cold, shifting winds, that search the very marrow,—it is always safe to count more or less upon the probability of the unexpected throughout the month. ”

“ There is no month in the whole year in which nature wears a more beautiful appearance than in the month of August. Spring has many beauties, and May is a fresh and blooming month, but the charms of this time of year are enhanced by their contrast with the winter season. ”

“ It’s not the month, but all the world’s a-maying!
Come then with me, I’ll take you, for I know
Where the first hedgethorns and white windflowers blow:
We two alone, that goes without the saying.
The month has treacherous clouds and moves in fears.
This April shames the month itself with smiles:
In whose new eyes I know no heaven of tears,
But still serene desire and between whiles,
So great a look that even April’s grace
Makes only marvel at her only face.
[57] MAY.
This is the laughing-eyed amongst them all:
My lady’s month. A season of young things. ”

“ 'Twas now the month in which the world began,
(If March beheld the first created man) :
And since the vernal equinox, the sun,
In Aries twelve degrees, or more, had run;
When, casting up his eyes against the light,
Both month, and day, and hour he measured right; 450
And told more truly than the Ephemeris:
For art may err, but nature cannot miss.
Thus numbering times and seasons in his breast,
His second crowing the third hour confess'd. ”

“ Of all the months that fill the year
Give April's month to me,
For earth and sky are then so filled
With sweet variety! ”

“ The month itself is a liberal education to him who is not insensible to beauty and the strong sweet promise of life. The streams run clear then, as they do not in April; the sky is high and transparent; the world seems so large and fresh and inviting. Our houses, which six months in the year in these latitudes are fortifications of defense, are open now, and the breath of life flows through them. Even over the city the sky is benign, and all the country is a heavenly exhibition. May was sweet and capricious. This is the maidenhood deliciousness of the year. ”

“ A month of which, whenever we would announce ruin to a man, we say, Go, March has shaved you!' A month of which, when you want to call a man presumptuous, you say, What cares March?' A month in short so hateful, that it would be the best fortune for the world, the greatest blessing to the earth, the greatest gain to men, were it excluded from the band of brothers. ”

“ then came April, that daybreak of summer, fresh as dawn always is, gay like every childhood; a little inclined to weep at times like the new-born being that it is. In that month, nature has charming gleams which pass from the sky, from the trees, from the meadows and the flowers into the heart of man. ”

“ It only means a month out of your life, a month’s trouble and discomfort, but with no risk. What is a month out of a lifetime, when that month means immortality to you and life to thousands? In a month you would make a half dozen after-dinner speeches and cause your friends to laugh and applaud. ”

“ I was plunged into a happy dream of month succeeding month, bringing each with it its own glory of radiant bloom, very much after the manner of Walter Crane's picture-books. Life was going to be well worth living. ”

“ October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight. ”

“ but who would scorn the month of June, Because December, with his breath so hoary, Must come? Much rather should he court the ray, To hoard up warmth against a wintry day. ”

“ In order that the month may be distinguished from others it is named after an occupation or natural phase which takes place while the month lasts, being described commonly by means of the addition ‘moon of the —’, but not seldom simply by the name of the natural phase or the occupation respectively. Any natural phase or occupation can originally give its name to a month, and hence arises an indefinite number of such terms. When any period of the year is without important [216] natural phases and occupations, the months in this period are not named. ”

“ The year was divided according to a Lunar Calendar, which was one month or so in advance of the present Solar Calendar.
Names of the Months
First month; Social month; Spring-birth month.
Second month; Clothes-again-doubled month; Little-grass-growing month.
Third month; Ever-growing month; Flowery month; Dreaming month. ”

“ How much is lost to view owing to this tendency can hardly be imagined, but there are sufficient indications in the reports to point to the fluctuating, manifold, and unstable nature of the primitive naming of the months.
One of these indications is the great variability of the names. Many peoples have remained at the stage at which a fixed connexion between month and season does not exist: every season—taking the word in its broadest sense—, every natural event and occupation may be associated with a month. ”

“ A month of rigid weather is supposed to brace up the moral nature, and a month of gentleness is supposed to soften the asperities of the disposition, but February contributes to neither of these ends. ”

“ This fluctuating character of the nomenclature explains the instability of the names of the months; when anything new happens which is of importance for the life of the people, it serves to describe a month. ”

“ The Yeneseisk Ostiaks of the Sym are said to count only seven winter months, not the summer months. They are:—1, month in which the earth freezes; 2, reindeer-rutting month; 3, the little, 4, the great month; 5, eagle month; 6, squirrel month; 7, spawning month, in which the pike spawns. Another list gives:—1, fall-of-the-leaf month; 2, month in which the earth begins to freeze; 3, dog month, in which the dogs pair; 4, the little, 5, the great month; 6, eagle month; 7, squirrel month; 8, spawning month ”

“ A month of Apparition, is the space wherein the Moon appeareth (deducting three daies wherein it commonly disappeareth; and being in combustion with the Sun, is presumed of less activity,) and this containeth but 26 daies and 12 hours. The medical month, not much exceedeth this, consisting of 26 daies and 22 hours, and is made up out of all the other months. ”

“ We know that, roughly, a year is the time it takes the four seasons to come and go, and that this is done when the Earth travels once round the Sun; that the month is based on the time it takes the Moon to travel once round the Earth; that the week has nothing to do with the Sun, Earth, Moon or Stars, but is a pure invention, and, finally, that the day is the time it takes the Earth to turn once round on its axis. ”

“ For the names of months, however, abundant material is accessible.
The names given to the months by the Voguls, with variants from the districts of Tawda, Konda, and middle and lower Loswa (tributary of the Irtysh) , are, beginning from Sept./Oct.:—1, little autumn-hunting month, little autumn, autumn month; 2, great autumn-hunting month, month of the naked trees, snow month; 3, winter month; 4, month of light (lengthening of the days) , winter month; 5, ski month, the little winter month, wind month; 6, month of the thawing snow-crust; 7, month of thaw, spawning month or month of corn-sowing ”

“ By the new calendar the year of 365 days was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, every month being divided into three periods of ten days, each of which were called décades, and the tenth, or last, day of each decade being a day of rest. ”

“ The counting that is important for the calendar is that according to the days of the lunar month, but in this the primitive peoples hold to the concrete phenomenon of the moon. The habit of reckoning in this fashion may however be partly responsible for the fact that among certain peoples [323] every day of the month has not been given a name, but the days are counted from certain points of departure, such as new moon, full moon, etc. Very rarely do we meet with a genuinely calendrical use of the tally. ”

“ THE MONTH. The course of the sun determines the variation between day and night, and causes the natural phases of the year. From the position of the sun the times of the day can be given with ease and certainty, but not so the seasons of the year,—to the exceptions I shall recur in chapter XII. From the fixed stars the hours of the night can be determined, and still more frequently are the seasons regulated by them. ”

“ The month, in turn, took its name from the constellation that had the honor of harboring the moon. Manon and the Djyotisha (a special treatise included among the Védângas, or commentaries on the Vedas) tell us that the year was composed of twelve months, the month of thirty days, the day of thirty hours, the hour of forty-eight minutes, all strictly sexagesimal subdivisions, like our own measures of time. The Djyotisha also teaches the art of constructing a clepsydra, or water-clock. ”

“ He was as fresh as is the month of May. ”

“ As full of spirit as the month of May
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; ”

“ As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. ”

“ The day, the month and the year are each defined by some specific revolution of one of the great cosmical bodies; there is in each case a return of the earth, or of the earth and moon together, to the same position, relative to the sun, as that held at the beginning of the period.
The week stands in a different category. It is not defined by any astronomical revolution; it is defined by the return of the sabbath, the consecrated day.
A need for the division of time into short periods, less than a month, has been generally felt amongst civilized men. ”

“ Nor sight nor sound but has the freshness of novelty, and one rambler, at least, in his maturer years is still a boy at heart." These changes by the month and season enter into the plan of the present book, which presents a kind of naturalist's calendar or diary of the months. ”

“ Next in the series of our natural time units is the month, or the rhythmic period of the moon regarded as a luminary. By our savage ancestors, who credited the moon with powers of great importance to themselves, much use was made of this unit, hut as progress in knowledge has shown that the influence of the satellite had been vastly overrated, less and less attention has been paid to the returning crescent, and it is only in ecclesiastic calendars that the chronology of civilization now recognizes the natural month. ”

“ In fact, just as our years begin on different days of the week without causing any inconvenience, so the ancient months might be made to begin with different week-days. All that would be necessary to make the week measure fairly well the quarters of the month, would be to start each month on the proper or nearest week-day. ”

“ I believe the twenty-four hour day has come to stay—anomalous though it certainly will seem in the ten-day week, the fifty-day month, and the thousand-day year. ”

“ Since two synodical revolutions of the moon are slightly longer than two calendrical months it is wisest to start and end each group with a 30-day month. If this is done, the 47-month group will contain twenty-five 30-day and twenty-two 29-day months, and the 41-month group twenty-one 30-day and twenty 29-day months, making for the composition of the 135 months, seventy-one 30-day and sixty-four 29-day months, that is, seven more of the 30-day months than of those of 29 days, showing that actually three of the sixty-seven 29-day months expected in a normal repetition have become 30-day months. ”

“ Looking back earlier still, we find the month has dwindled down to a day, then down to a few hours, until, at that wondrous epoch when the moon was almost touching the earth, the moon spun round the earth once every three hours. ”