"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."