"...how like the seasons people are"

"It is interesting to note how much like the seasons people are. I know some who are summer people, and I am happy to be with them. They are gay and easy and full of pleasant talk. But they would never do for an emergency. Then they are too busy or they are going away. There are people like spring, too, volatile and blowing away one minute and another way the next. They are charming. Autumnal people are sober and grave, I find, but with bursts of sudden color.

But winter people are the best and there are few of them. They are the friends who are deep and true, once you penetrate to the secret warmth. The surface may not be as gay and charming but under the austere surface runs the living sap of lovingkindness. These are the friends to call when there is an emergency, big or small. They are the ones who never expect gratitude for favors done, it is a matter of course to help out, think nothing of it.

But it is wrong to expect summer people and spring people and even autumn people to be different than they are by nature. We cannot all be alike, and indeed it would be a sad world if we were. How much better to enjoy the gift of personality which everyone has and not expect a summer person to sit up all night with you while you watch a sick puppy. Ask that of a winter person, but enjoy the summer people for what they do give and for what you give them."

                                         Gladys Taber,   Stillmeadow Sampler