Open season

“ You may become enamored of a winsome pond on October days, a mystical beauty veiled in autumn haze, only to find her mood changed for the reserve and uncommunicativeness of winter.
When the pond freezes over we experience something of that feeling which comes with the first snow, a delightful sense of novelty, briefly entertained each season. The water has suddenly lost its mobility and become passive and expressionless, as one in a hypnotic state. A great calm has settled upon the earth; the winter sleep is in the air and the ponds have succumbed with the woodchuck. ”

“ A few days only remained of the upland open season, but for that matter the sportsmen speeding from all quarters in their motors to the most remote woodlands and brush lots had changed the luck and ways of foot hunting, and what birds remained had been so harried that they huddled and refused to rise. ”

“ No matter whether one arrives in December or February one always feels that the season is at its height. And so it goes on until the ice begins to get soft and the rink has to be closed for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, and the ice-run is only open till ten o’clock, and ski-ers have to start out betimes to make sure of good snow, and at last, say towards the end of the first week in March, the ice is no longer skateable, the snow is too soft for long expeditions, and the first flowers appear upon the Chamossaire. ”

“ Here in Oaklands whoever sets a drinking trough before his door in summer-time to succour man and thirsty beasts receives so much a year from the town fathers. Why should not those who, in the dark season, set a row of jovial red geraniums behind the window-pane by day or a well-trimmed light by night, be equally rewarded? Is not the thirst for light, colour, and other home symbols as keen a desire of the winter wayfarer as his thirst for water in the torrid season? ”

“ A summer engagement at the sea-shore, among the mountains, or at the springs is often as eagerly sought as is the height of the season at Saratoga or among the Berkshires by persons whose opportunities for change are far less restricted. The occupations temporarily open at the time of the hop-picking season, or the fruit-canning season, offer the attraction of large numbers of fellow-workers in the company of whom “a good time” is expected. ”

“ Every season has its characteristic song. More than all others is the voice of the hyla, essentially springlike and to be associated with no other time. For several days there has been an occasional desultory chirp from the woods, when of a sudden, some clear evening, there comes out of the stillness that wonderfully sweet piping of little frogs. Fresh and ringing as child voices, it has, at a distance, a certain rhythm, a soothing cadence, which lulls the ear like the musical patter of rain-drops in summer showers. ”

“ Over there the season had opened quite as usual; indeed, it was always open; work must go on every day, because every day food must be obtained and rent-money earned, and the change from summer to winter was only a climatic increase of hardships. ”

“ The advancing season makes itself known through the songsters; they have keener perceptions and receive other intimations than come to us. Day by day, as by appointment, they reappear from Florida, from the Amazon and the Orinoco, and make themselves at home again in northern pastures. ”

“ It is up in Northern Queensland that the "seasons" do their best,
But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the west,
There are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring,
There are broiling Junes -- and summers when it rains like anything. ”

“ Winter drains the scene of color, but salt winds cheat the lower temperatures of their rigor, and it is a hard season when snow lies in the meadows through consecutive weeks. Then there are days of brave sunlight when whitecaps feather over the surface of the bay, and ice-cakes churn in with the tide and pile up like opals on the beach: days when the air is wine-clear, and the land is dressed in its best of warm russet brown, and hoofs strike the frozen roads with the resonance of Piccadilly pavements. ”

“ Many settlers travel in these sleds from two to three hundred miles to the city for a market, (such trips being seldom made more than once a year,) when they barter their farm produce for tea, tobacco, hardware, and other luxuries which their farms do not yield. The summer, as I have already observed, is truly delightful; the air, notwithstanding the heat, is pure, and the nights at this season exceed in splendour the most beautiful in Europe. The autumn very much resembles an English autumn—the days warm, and the evenings delightfully cool. ”

“ Our springs are incomparably finer and pleasanter than anything down south, and our foliage is greener and cleaner than hot countries can show. Our summers are just hot enough to give us a taste of what hot weather really is, and make us long for the russet fall season, with its golden grains, and red-cheeked fruits, and{267} delightful sombre days, when our atmosphere becomes veritable champagne in itself, followed by the forest pictures of bright colors as the frost touches the foliage. ”

“ The last letter received by me from New Hampshire, April 3d, begins in this way: "It is like the middle of winter here, good sleighing and still very cold." And then comes a sad series of announcements of sickness and deaths caused by the protracted rigors of the season. And here, at the same date, all the glories of the spring, which far exceeds our summer—Spanish breezes, Italian sky and sunsets, Alpine mountains, tropical luxuriance of vegetation, a nearly uniform climate, a big outdoor conservatory. There is no other place on earth that combines so much in the same limits. ”

“ The short summer of Lower Canada causes great activity in business during the 'seasons.' The summer and autumn are therefore the times of business; the short interval between them the time for visits to the seaside, or to Saratoga, or the Caledonia Springs; while the winter, with its snow and ice and long endurance, brings round a continuous carnival of pleasant racket, and is really the season of society amongst all ranks of the people. ”

“ Many have expressed objections to the climate, on account of the rainy seasons, and it can not be denied that they frequently render it quite disagreeable and gloomy, especially to those who have just emigrated to the country. Yet most persons do their accustomed business at this season, whether it be in or out of doors, without seeming to experience any great inconvenience, or suffering detriment to their health. ”

“ And, so far as concerns the exceptions, it will here suffice to remind ourselves of mountain climbing on snowshoes in winter, of ski-running and skating, and of the winter carnivals of sport held in the Adirondacks, in the Alps, and in the Rocky Mountains. In our southern states, however, no disadvantage attaches to winter; to the contrary, over a great part of that region, winter is the pleasanter season for the pedestrian. But summer is the season of vacations, and is, generally speaking, the time of good roads, fair skies, and gentle air. Then one can walk with greatest ease and freedom. ”

“ Week after week sped by, summer ripened into fall, and fall faded into winter. All was monotony: the bleak winter season, the shorter days, the longer evenings, the city settling down into a period of seclusion and social inaction. There would be little of gayety this year. No foreign visitors would be entertained by the townsfolk. There would be no Mischienza to look forward to. ”

“ For Nature in most lavish mood accompanies us. No matter at what season, the two and a half hours road from Bex to Les Plans is full of beauty for the eye and mind, but if there is one season above the others when this beauty is the more bewitching it is that of spring. Oh, why—a thousand times why!—is spring in the Alps so neglected by travellers seeking charm and pleasure? Why are the Kursaals crowded in spring by those who, at Custom’s bidding, are waiting for a later, more healthy and resplendent season? ”

“ There seems, in truth, to be a certain fitness in the turning of men's thoughts at the spring season to the heights of the mountains, where, as nowhere else, the cares and ailments of the winter time are forgotten; and it is a noticeable fact that these upland districts are now as thronged with visitors during Easter week as in August itself. ”

“ We are now in the beginning of June, the fresh outburst of summer, when every day in the country is a delight to eye and ear, and we say, 'The season for hot rooms is beginning.' We alone of civilized races spend our summer in a capital, and cling to the country when the trees are leafless and the brooks frozen. ”

“ So, by degrees, autumn faded imperceptibly into winter, winter into spring, and spring into summer. Each season in its turn found people dwelling peaceably in their urban habitations, entertaining and being entertained; and so "the Season" lost its sharp edges. The meeting of Parliament brought [72] no perceptible change in the aspect of the town. "High Midsummer Pomps" were no longer so "high" as in former years, but, per contra, there was much more gaiety in the autumn and winter and early spring. ”

“ Such a use of the season would be a poor return for all the good things which Providence has wrought in our behalf. We know at this season of the year that the mountain summits are covered with snow, and in some places the drooping sides are whitened with the treasures of the clouds, but even these things, chilling as they may appear, are good in their season, and the beauteous covering of the hill-tops may glisten with the reflected rays of the sun, and seem to enjoy the visiter that has descended upon them. ”

“ They rise in the warm midday hours, mostly over the middle region, in June and July, like new mountain ranges, higher Sierras, mightily augmenting the grandeur of the scenery while giving rain to the forests and gardens and bringing forth their fragrance. The wonderful weather and beauty inspire everybody to be up and doing. Every summer day is a workday to be confidently counted on, the short dashes of rain forming, not interruptions, but rests. The big blessed storm days of winter, when the whole range stands white, are not a whit less inspiring and kind. ”

“ Unless the drivers are checked at the outset, they are very apt to fall into the habit of flogging their teams. It is not only wholly unnecessary but cruel, and should never be tolerated. In traveling with ox teams in the summer season, great benefit will be derived from making early marches; starting with the dawn, and making a "nooning" during the heat of the day, as oxen suffer much from the heat of the sun in midsummer. These noon halts should, if possible, be so arranged as to be near grass and water, where the animals can improve their time in grazing. ”

“ It is just possible that the weather may sometimes become too cold in the winter for open-air exercise; but the winter of 1890-1891, with its occasional snow-storms, its alternating days of rain and clear sunshine, was an almost ideal one for the rambler. There were times when the woods were clad in robes more beautiful than the green of spring or the brown of autumn ”

“ If they can be allowed to make the whole of their growth in the open air, say from the first of June to the first of September, they will be the handsomer and healthier for it, but they will do very well under glass all the summer if allowed plenty of light and air. ”

“ Thus, for instance, the running brook, though by no means peculiar, is appropriated to Spring; as affording by its motion and seeming exultation one of the most lively images of that spirit of renovation which animates the earth after its temporary suspension during the Winter. By the same rule, is assigned to Summer the placid lake, &c. not because that image is never seen, or enjoyed, at any other season ”

“ It is remarkable, that in order to produce something of a similar effect in his Summer, a season which, on account of its uniformity of character, does not admit of any strongly-marked gradations, he has comprized the whole of his description within the limits of a single day, pursuing the course of the sun from its rising to its setting. A Summer's day is, in reality, a just model of the entire season. ”

“ Summer, of course, is the chief walking season, but there are many paths in some of the lower districts possible in the winter. Certainly those who go to the winter resorts for the sports should make a point of breaking away now and again from skating rink and toboggan run for a quiet prowl along some solitary path, to enjoy in solitude, or in the company of a dear friend, the calm joy of an Alpine sunset such as Mr. Symonds describes:
While the west grows momentarily more pale the eastern heavens flush with afterglow, suffuse their spaces with pink and violet. ”

“ During summer, the people that can make it convenient retire to country houses in the neighbourhood of the town, and all public and private amusements cease; winter is the season for them, the Congress being then assembled, and trade not being so closely attended to, as the navigation of the river is then commonly impeded by ice. ”

“ The snow had somewhat abated; carriages and tradesmen's wagons were hurrying soundlessly to and fro in the winter twilight; boys in woolen mufflers were shoveling off the doorsteps; the avenue stages made fine spots of color against the white street. Here and there on the corners were stands, with whole flower gardens blooming under glass cases, against the sides of which the snowflakes stuck and melted; violets, roses, carnations, lilies of the valley—somehow vastly more lovely and alluring that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow. The Park itself was a wonderful stage winterpiece. ”