Evergreens
by Jerome K. Jerome




EVERGREENS.

They look so dull and dowdy in the spring weather, when the snow drops
and the crocuses are putting on their dainty frocks of white and mauve
and yellow, and the baby-buds from every branch are peeping with
bright eyes out on the world, and stretching forth soft little leaves
toward the coming gladness of their lives. They stand apart, so cold
and hard amid the stirring hope and joy that are throbbing all around
them.

And in the deep full summer-time, when all the rest of nature dons its
richest garb of green, and the roses clamber round the porch, and the
grass waves waist-high in the meadow, and the fields are gay with
flowers--they seem duller and dowdier than ever then, wearing their
faded winter's dress, looking so dingy and old and worn.

In the mellow days of autumn, when the trees, like dames no longer
young, seek to forget their aged looks under gorgeous bright-toned
robes of gold and brown and purple, and the grain is yellow in the
fields, and the ruddy fruit hangs clustering from the drooping boughs,
and the wooded hills in their thousand hues stretched like leafy
rainbows above the vale--ah! surely they look their dullest and
dowdiest then. The gathered glory of the dying year is all around
them. They seem so out of place among it, in their somber,