Evergreens | Page 3

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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, 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 our prosperity makes the green
of their friendship no brighter, the frost of our adversity kills not the
leaves of their affection.
Let us lay hold of such men and women; let us grapple them to us with
hooks of steel; let us cling to them as we would to rocks in a tossing sea.
We do not think very much of them in the summertime of life. They do
not flatter us or gush over us. They do not always agree with us. They
are not always the most delightful society, by any means. They are not
good talkers, nor--which would do just as well, perhaps better--do they
make enraptured listeners. They have awkward manners, and very little
tact. They do not shine to advantage beside our society friends. They do
not dress well; they