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The Feminine Personification of Spring Through the Years.

The feminine personification of the season of Spring is documented in a number of public‐domain sources and named Spring, the Fairy of Spring, Fairy Spring, Lady Spring, Miss Spring, Mistress Spring, Princess Spring, Queen of Spring, the Spirit of Spring, Miss Springtime, Verna and Vesna.

Additionally, the goddesses Flora and Chloris have been considered personifications of springtime although their names refer more to plants and greenery. (However, in the 1921 play The Magic Fiddle, Flora, fairy of the flowers, and Verna, fairy of spring, are shown to be two separate beings.) The goddesses Persephone and Saraswati are also strongly associated with springtime.

☞ “Spring,” illustration by (William B.) Gihon for “Spring,” by R. H. Stoddard, Sartain’s Magazine, vol. 6, no. 4, Apr. 1850. (In the public domain.)

☞ Illustration for “The Revolt of the Flowers,” by Mary E. VanDyne, Harper’s Young People, vol. 7, no. 344, 1 June 1886. (In the public domain.)

☞ Spring, painting by William Holbrook Beard (1824–1900), year not known. (In the public domain.)

☞ “The Spirit of Spring,” illustration by Polly Marston Leavitt for “The Crowning of the Queen,” by Jessie M. Baker, St. Nicholas, vol. 42, no. 7, May 1915. (In the public domain.)

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בתאבון۔

Someone asked me and I didn’t know, so I looked it up.

Bə‐tēʼāḇôn בתאבון = Bon appétit.

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Philippians 4:8.

“[W]hatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are amiable, whatever things are reputable, if there be Any Virtue, and if Any Praise, attentively consider These things ….”

—Philippians 4:8, The Emphatic Diaglott, trans. Benjamin Wilson, 1864.

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Peter Rabbit and Minnie Mouse, 1926.

A Sunday comic strip from 1926 offers a tiny glimpse of Minnie Mouse’s life prior to the release in 1928 of the animated cartoons Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie.

In May 1926, Mrs. Peter Rabbit presents her sons with a May basket she has made for them, encouraging them to adhere to tradition: “[F]ollowing th’ ol’ time custom,” she instructs them, “one of you can take it under th’ light of th’ moon an’ hang it on th’ doorknob of a lil’ girl friend.”

Among the animal neighbors to whom the elder son considers giving the basket is none other than Minnie Mouse. However, he decides instead to give it to Mary Chuck, and as a result, the world would have to wait until 1928 for a published visual depiction of Minnie.

☞ Minnie Mouse mentioned in “Ol’ Dinah Possum Makes a Springtime Wish and Peter Rabbit’s Youngster Fulfills It,” Peter Rabbit (comic strip), by Harrison Cady, St. Louis Post‐Dispatch, vol. 78, no. 237, Boys’ and Girls’ Magazine, 2 May 1926. (In the public domain.)

☞ Detail of a scene from Steamboat Willie, Walt Disney Studio, 1928. (In the public domain.)

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Terra (Mother Earth), 1618.

🌍 As the song “Happy Birthday to You” has been firmly established to be in the public domain, it can be sung to wish people a happy Earth Day without incurring any copyright infringement.

(If she is the Earth, on what is she standing?)

☞ “Nutrix ejus terra eſt,” emblem by Matthias Merian illustrating epigram no. 2, Atalanta Fugiens …, by Michaele Majero (Michael Maier), 1618. (In the public domain.)

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Easter angel, 1896 and 1902.

A feminine personification of Easter brings to my mind the Indo‐European goddess of the dawn, Ēostre/​Eos/​Aurora/​Ushas.

☞ Cover design by Louis Rhead, Worcester Evening Gazette, Easter souvenir, 16 Apr. 1897, previously published in The Evening Telegraph, Easter number, 4 Apr. 1896.

☞ “Easter,” cover design by Albert D. Blashfield, Life, vol. 39, no. 1013, 27 Mar. 1902.

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Secure cup, 2025.

🥤 I had noticed that the disposable plastic containers at Wendy’s close very firmly, some of them to the point of being difficult to open, but this was put to the test in February when I slipped and fell in the snow and banged my knee on 35ᵗʰ Avenue. My closed cup flew out of my hand and hit the sidewalk with the force of gravity, landing upside down. Though a bit of dietetic soda did leak out through the straw, I was able to pick the cup up and finish the drink at home.

☞ IMG_6430, 3 Feb. 2025, in which I show the very cup I had dropped the day before. (Photograph by Elyaqim Mosheh Adam, CC BY‐SA.)

☞ “I walked up to Wabun,” illustration by Henry Sandham for “Wabun Anung,” by F. Houghton, Outing, vol. 15, no. 3, Dec. 1889. (In the public domain.)

☞ “Council Committee on Minneapolis Sidewalks,” cartoon by Charles L. Bartholomew, The Minneapolis Journal, 15 Feb. 1915. (In the public domain.)

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“Let my people go.” שלח את עמי܁

☞ “Go Down, Moses (Let My People Go!),” arranged by H. T. Burleigh, performed by Reed Miller, tenor and chorus with orchestra, Edison 80487‒R, 1918. (In the public domain.)

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Multiple Easter hares, 1920.

Illustrations by K. F. v. Freyhold (d. 1944) for Oſterbuch (a.k.a. Haſenbuch), by Ch. Morgenſtern (d. 1914), 1920. (In the public domain.)

Downloaded from HathiTrust (012518173), from digitization at Google Books (N7U9AQAAMAAJ).

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Almond ding and amandine.

Even beyond the obvious first element that refers to almonds, the culinary terms almond ding and amandine quite resemble one another—don’t they?

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Id əl‐Fitr 2025.

Living in western Jackson Hts. has become like living in an Islamic country. When I moved to Queens more than a decade ago, there were plenty of Muslims, mostly Bangladeshis, in the area, and some of the women wore hicab (headscarf), but the past few years have seen an influx of apparent extremists in large numbers, with many women nowadays wearing niqab (facial veil) or even a burqa, to the point that I can only rarely leave my building without seeing it.

In the first hour (00:00–01:00) of Sunday, 30 March, as Ramazan had finally drawn to a close, I saw that 37ᵗʰ Avenue between 73ʳᵈ and 74ᵗʰ streets was absolutely clogged with large crowds of celebrants who filled the sidewalks while standing around talking and eating and who unconcernedly obstructed pedestrian paths, including my own.

After sunrise, as I was heading out to eat breakfast, it was a very Islamic morning, with audible prayers for Id əl‐Fitr (post‐Ramazan holiday) being amplified from some unseen nearby location, presumably an outdoor site, with numerous Mohammedans walking thereto, including a man with a keffiyə headdress who was hurriedly pushing a woman in a wheelchair. (My breakfast, by the way, included pork sausage.)

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Marc and Polly, 2025.

❤️ Today, 22 February, is the coincidentally shared birthday of two of the closest friends I have ever had—Marc Matthew Atkins and John H. Cox (“Polly Grip”)—both of whom died in their forties. As an ironic consequence of the digital age, I learned about their deaths years after they had happened. This is just a quick post to say I miss them both greatly.

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Executive Power, 1787.

“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years ….”

 —Constitution of the United States, article 2, Constitutional Convention, 1787. (In the public domain.)

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Neighbour vs. naiba.

The way some Australians pronounce the word neighbour can sound like the Romanian word naiba ‘devil’.

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It seems Kash Patel’s full first name (कश्यप) comes from a Sanskrit root that means ‘turtle’.

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1929 will soon be here!

Happy New Year!

☞ Cover design by Rea Irvin, The New Yorker, vol. 4, no. 45, 29 Dec. 1928. (In the public domain.)

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Ghosts that haunt houses, 1928.

☞ Title page illustration, Little Orphan Annie and the Haunted House, by Harold Gray, 1928. (In the public domain.)

☞ “Unaffected emotion of George, First Baron of Beaurivage on the appearance of an historic figure,” illustration by G. K. Chesterton (d. 1936) for The Haunted House, by Hilaire Belloc (d. 1953), 1928. (In the public domain.)