Of all things . ists into the woods and fieldsand stand about in the mud until a half-clothedbird comes out and peeps. If you really wantto be in on the official advent of Spring, you maysit in a nice warm observatory and, entirely freefrom head-colds, proceed with the following simplecourse : Take first the conception of a fictitious pointwhich we shall call, for fun, the Mean Mean Equinox moves at a nearly uniform rate,slowly varying from century to century. Now here comes the trick of the thing. TheMean Equinox is merely a decoy, and, once youhave determined it, you shift sudde
Of all things . ists into the woods and fieldsand stand about in the mud until a half-clothedbird comes out and peeps. If you really wantto be in on the official advent of Spring, you maysit in a nice warm observatory and, entirely freefrom head-colds, proceed with the following simplecourse : Take first the conception of a fictitious pointwhich we shall call, for fun, the Mean Mean Equinox moves at a nearly uniform rate,slowly varying from century to century. Now here comes the trick of the thing. TheMean Equinox is merely a decoy, and, once youhave determined it, you shift suddenly to the TrueEquinox which you can tell, according to ProfessorA. M. Clarks treatise on the subject, because itmoves around the Mean Equinox in a period equalto that of the moons nodes. Now all you have todo is to find out what the moons nodes are (isntit funny that you can be as familiar with anobject as you are with the moon and see it almostevery night, and yet never know that it has even 190 OF ALL THINGS!. On the subject of springs arrival intuition may be led astray, one node, not to mention nodes ?) and then find outhow fast they move. This done and you havediscovered the Vernal Equinox, or Spring, andwithout spilHng a dactyl. HAIL, VERNAL EQUINOX! 191 How much simpler this is than the old, romanticway of determining when Spring had come ! Apoet has to depend on his intuition for information,and, on the subject of Springs arrival, intuitionmay be led astray by any number of things. Youmay be sitting over one of those radiators whichare concealed under window-seats, for instance,and before you are aware of it feel what you taketo be the first flush of Spring creeping over would be obviously premature to go out andwrite a poem on Youth and Love and Young Onionson the strength of that. I once heard of a young man who in Novemberdiscovered that he had an intellectual attachmentfor a certain young woman and felt that marriedhfe with her would be without doubt a succe
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