A Singular Life by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

It is manifestly as unfair to judge of a place by its March as to judge a man's disposition by the hour before dinner. As the coldest exteriors may conceal the warmest loves, so the repelling Cesarean winter holds in store one of the most alluring summers known to inland New England. The grass is riper, the flowers richer, the ranks of elms are statelier, the skies are gentler, and the people happier than could be expected of Cesarean theology. Nay, theology itself unbends in April, softens in May, warms in June, and grows sunny and human by the time the students are graduated and turned loose upon the world, -- a world which is, on the whole, so patient with their inexperience, and so ready to accept as spiritual leaders men whose own life's lessons are yet to be learned, and whose own views of the great mysteries which they dare to interpret are so much more assured than they will be ten years later.

Emanuel Bayard and Helen Carruth walked together beneath the ancient trees that formed the great cross upon the Seminary green.