everlasting green, like poor relations at a rich man's feast. It is
such a weather-beaten old green dress. So many summers' suns have
blistered it, so many winters' rains have beat upon it--such a shabby,
mean, old dress; it is the only one they have!

They do not look quite so bad when the weary winter weather is come,
when the flowers are dead, and the hedgerows are bare, and the trees
stand out leafless against the gray sky, and the birds are all silent,
and the fields are brown, and the vine clings round the cottages with
skinny, fleshless arms, and they alone of all things are unchanged,
they alone of all the forest are green, they alone of all the verdant
host stand firm to front the cruel winter.

They are not very beautiful, only strong and stanch and steadfast--the
same in all times, through all seasons--ever the same, ever green.
The spring cannot brighten them, the summer cannot scorch them, the
autumn cannot wither them, the winter cannot kill them.

There are evergreen men and women in the world, praise be to God! Not
many of them, but a few. They are not the showy folk; they are not
the clever, attractive folk. (Nature is an old-fashioned shopkeeper;
she never puts her best goods in the window.) They are only the
quiet, strong folk; they are stronger than the world, stronger than
life or death, stronger than Fate. The storms of life sweep over
them, and the rains beat down upon them, and the biting frosts creep
round them; but the winds and the rains and the frosts pass away, and
they are still standing, green and straight. They love the sunshine
of life in their undemonstrative way--its pleasures, its joys. But
calamity cannot bow them, sorrow and affliction bring not despair to
their serene faces, only a little tightening of the lips; the sun of