God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.

Barrie’s aphorism treats memory as a providential consolation: what nature withholds in winter (“December”) can be restored inwardly through recollection (“roses”). The image suggests that the mind can preserve and reanimate past beauty, love, and happiness when present circumstances are barren or cold. It also implies a moral or spiritual dimension—memory is not merely a mental faculty but a gift with a purpose, enabling endurance, gratitude, and tenderness across time. In Barrie’s broader preoccupation with childhood, loss, and longing, the line resonates as a gentle defense of nostalgia: not escapism, but a means of keeping what is precious available to the heart when it is most needed.