It is a tender shoot, easily blasted by cold winds, the creative
instinct: but persistent. It has many adventitious buds. A late frost
destroying the freshness of its early verdure, may be the means of a
richer growth in later and more favourable days.

* * * * *

For a week I left my helve standing there in the corner. I did not even
look at it. I was slain. I even thought of getting up in the night and
putting the helve on the coals--secretly. Then, suddenly, one morning, I
took it up not at all tenderly, indeed with a humorous appreciation of
my own absurdities, and carried it out into the yard. An axe-helve is
not a mere ornament but a thing of sober purpose. The test, after all,
of axe-helves is not sublime perfection, but service. We may easily find
flaws in the verse of the master--how far the rhythm fails of the final
perfect music, how often uncertain the rhyme--but it bears within it,
hidden yet evident, that certain incalculable fire which kindles and
will continue to kindle the souls of men. The final test is not the
perfection of precedent, not regularity, but life, spirit.

It was one of those perfect, sunny, calm mornings that sometimes come in
early April: the zest of winter yet in the air, but a promise of summer.

I built a fire of oak chips in the middle of the yard, between two flat
stones. I brought out my old axe, and when the fire had burned down
somewhat, leaving a foundation of hot coals, I thrust the eye of the axe
into the fire. The blade rested on one of the flat stones, and I kept it
covered with wet rags in order that it might not heat sufficiently to
destroy the temper of the steel. Harriet's old gray hen, a garrulous