Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-03-01
MARCH BEGINS H
LIVING CALENDAR
Romulus Made a Mistake in Naming
1.-THE Early Anglo-Saxons I'm
locked Their Word-Hoard With
Better Effect.
BY NJ G. FULLER

i the month of March stood at the head OF
the calendar. The legal year In England be-
gan with the 25th of March until the middle
Of the 18th century. They are dull and
spiritless, nowadays. who think Of March in
the formal terms of the dictionary, the
third month of the modern calendar" Such
is not It's true m~eaning-not at all.
A poet sang, for all poets are singers,
though not all singers are poets-a poet
sang:
1t is the first mild day Of March:
Each minute sweeter than before,
The redbreRst sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.
Then a few verses farther on;
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living Calendar:
We from today, my friend, Will date
The opening of the year.
II you have never had that thought. or
rather, that emotion, your calendar is a
dead and lifelcss thing, like a dead language
to those poor drones who lack the gift and
grace of adventurous rcceptivity. The tall
larch of the poem is before the door of Words
worth. Let us see IL any American can speak
his language. Bryant responds to the charm
of March:
All, passing few are they who speak,
Wild stormy month, In praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.
For thou to Northern lands again
The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast Joined the gentle train
And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.
The Disgrace of Mars
This year, when the houn'-dogs and cur
dogs and wolf-dogs of war. aye, the whole
yelping, snarling, crazy pack of war-dogs,
biting even worse than they bark, are making
a bloody bedlam of Europe, the name mill
~tates-that Is the w~ord-against a due appre-
citation of meritorious March. Romulus chose
the appellation, desiring to honor his puta-
tive father, Mars. Such is one account of its
origin, but Ovid AYERS that the month Of
March was in existence long before Romulus.
However that may be, Mars has latterly
fallen into i'll repute. He Is drunk, Keeling,
roaring drunk, and goeth about seeking
whom he may devour. He is much more re-
spectacle in the pages Of Bul1nch's Age of
Fable than in the cable dispatches of the
modern age of science. Let us try to pre-
serve our judgment of March from the evil
association of its namesake's orgies.
The early Anglo-saxons called the month
by a name which has a much pleasanter
etymology. "Lencten-monath" was the APP
propriate title bestowed on 1t by the viking
people. 1t has a fine Beowulfan flavor. 1t
is connative and descriptive, a condensed
nature poem, picturing the month itself,
which
to Northern lands again
The glad and glorious sun dost bring.
'Lencten" means spring, and in its Ger
manic form refers to "the lengthening days"
From it our word Lent" is derived.
1t is true, however, that the old Anglo
Saxons had another designation for March
"hlyd-monath," loud or stormy month. This
aa d. ~ nEa-
sibilities of March weather. There is moth
ing humdrum or monotonous about March
weather, and it yields itself to the purposes
of cheerful, yet varied, conversation as does
the weather of no other month of the whole
year. There is winter to talk about in March.
and spring also; and something can be said
in favor of both. March never-weIl, hardly
ever-violates the proprteties by welcoming
Sweet Springtlme without giving Old Winter
a grand send-off.
"Winter, Frosty But Kindly"
OF course, with its snow and ice, winter has
not escaped caIumny. AS Bryant lamented,
they are not numerous who utter forth its
praise, but James Russell Lowell, in one Of
his most delightful essays, has spoken a
good word surprising well. Shakespeare de-
tends winter by the method of negative COM
parison, when he says that its winds are not
so unkind as mans ingratitude, and some
where else he speaks in positive fashion of
a lusty winter.
Frosty, but kindly.
Thomson, in his Hymn on the Seasons"
apostrophizes;
On the whlrlwind's wing
Riding sublime. thou bidst the world adore.
Though the poets and prosemen are in
clined to regard the season itself as typical
or svmbOlical of sorrow and desolatIon n is
little more than a manner of speaking and
there are many of them who see a matchless
splendor of beauty In the accompanying
snow. Passages In spenser, Cowper and
whittier Immediately conn to mind. Swim
burne describes
Acadian ATLANTA. snowy-souled,
Fair as the snow, and footed as the wind.
The kindness of winter is suggested by
Emerson:
Housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
There's a fireplace in Whittier's Snow
Bound" and in Charles Dudley Warmers
Backlog Studies It is apotheosized as the
c~onservator of all the homely virtues. Camp
bell pictures the home comfort OF a winters
day;
And when its short and sullen noon is Ger,
The ice-chained waters slumbering on the
How bright the faggots in the little hall
Blaze on the hearth. and warm the pictur'd
WALL
Old Herrick, too;
To our fire we can betake,
And enjoy the cracking brake.
Hawthorne's "Fire-W orshipers," in the
'Mosses From an old Manse," is full of sea-
sonable suggestion.
81. Hou.au Ton..4..-L.