OWL AT HOME

What seems at first to be the winter of Owl's discontent proves in the end, like all true melancholy, to have its sweet and ultimately contenting facets. Alone throughout, Owl invites "poor old winter" to come in and sit by the fire, but the "guest" behaves so wildly that Owl has to shut it out. Another night he makes tear-water tea by thinking of sad things (all subtly echoing his own loneliness); elsewhere he is driven to run madly upstairs and down in order to occupy both parts of his house at once, and in the end the moon accompanies him home from the other-wise unpopulated seashore. "'What a good round friend you are! said Owl. . . (and he) did not feel sad at all." Nor will readers, for to add to the solo cast would clearly shatter the poignant perfection of Owl alone.