Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/147

Rh and the children's feet are still not quite content with day's work in a treadmill.

Let our preferences be what they may, however, the greater number of us must stay where we are put, and play the hand that is dealt to us, happy if we can face the dark side of the year with a measure of philosophy. If there is a new self, as Thoreau says, there will be a new world and a new season. If we carry the tropics within us, we need not dream of Florida. And even if there is no constraint upon our going and coming, we need not be in haste to run away. We may safely wait a week or two, at least. November is often not half so bad as it is painted—not half so bad, indeed, as Thoreau himself sometimes painted it. For the eleventh month was not one of his favorites. "November Eat-Heart," he is more than once moved to call it. The experience of it puts his equanimity to the proof. Even his bravest words about it sound rather like a defiance than a welcome,—a little as if he were whistling to keep up his courage. With the month at its worst, he confesses, he has almost to drive himself