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An Old Woman's Outlook in a Hampshire Village
An Old Woman's Outlook in a Hampshire Village Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MARCH Leaden skies, dry hard atmosphere, with a gray haze over the distance, such is the general character of March. The boys play at marbles, favoured by the... more » hardness of the village street; people's faces get a stern fixed expression, and their talk is of ' black east wind.' But the Easter moon, the moon of moons, will soon begin to fill her horns. She often breaks through the haze at night, as the sun cannot do by day, the fact being that his absence makes more equality in heat (or cold) in the air, and therefore there is less opaqueness. The sun towards the end of the month is in Aries, therefore, of coursethat constellation is invisible now ; but in the winter it was to be distinguished by two large stars, one with a lesser one beside it, leading the zodiacal train. Just now, at night its opposites, Virgo, with her brilliant Spica, and Libra, are the most distinguished constellations. Libra, by the help of one star of its neighbour Scorpio, makes a kind of star-dotted anchor. It is a wonderful and grave thought that on that first Good Friday, the sun who hid his face at noonday, must have been in Aries, the Ram, named long ago in some strange uncomprehended foreboding of the Sacrifice. Here, too, preparing for the Holy Week, are the withies, the silver buttons of their catkins expanding into the full, fragrant yellow tuft of stamens protruding from tiny scales — pussies and goslings, as happy children call them. They furnish the sub- stitutes for palms, which our village childrenstill wear on Palm Sunday. It is far from inappropriate when we remember that ' willows from the brook' were part of the prescribed booths, made by the Jews at the Feast of Tabernacles, though that was in the autumn. The willows then used were by their traditions to have smooth-edged leaves, r...« less