gn, and over the quiet autumnal
landscape everywhere, even after the glory of the trees is past, there
are tints and fascinations of minor beauty. Last October, for instance,
in walking, I found myself on a little knoll, looking northward.
Overhead was a bower of climbing Waxwork, with its yellowish pods scarce
disclosing their scarlet berries,--a wild Grape-vine, with its
fruit withered by the frost into still purple raisins,--and yellow
Beech-leaves, detaching themselves with an effort audible to the ear.
In the foreground were blue Raspberry-stems, yet bearing greenish
leaves,--pale-yellow Witch-Hazel, almost leafless,--purple
Viburnum-berries,--the silky cocoons of the Milkweed,--and, amid the
underbrush, a few lingering Asters and Golden-Rods, Ferns still green,
and Maidenhair bleached white. In the background were hazy hills,
white Birches bare and snow-like, and a Maple half-way up a sheltered
hill-side, one mass of canary-color, its fallen leaves making an
apparent reflection on the earth at its foot,--and then a real
reflection, fused into a glassy light intenser than itself, upon the
smooth, dark stream below.

The beautiful disrobing suggested the persistent and unconquerable
delicacy of Nature, who shrinks from nakedness and is always seeking
to veil her graceful boughs,--if not with leaves, then with feathery
hoar-frost, ermined snow, or transparent icy armor.

But, after all, the fascination of summer lies not in any details,
however perfect, but in the sense of total wealth which summer gives.
Wholly to enjoy this, one must give one's self passively to it, and not
expect to reproduce it in words. We strive to picture heaven, when
we are barely at the threshold of the inconceivable beauty of earth.
Perhaps the truant boy who simply bathes himself in the lake and then
basks in the sunshine, dimly conscious of the exquisite loveliness
around him, is wiser, because humbler, than is he who with presumptuous
phrases tries to utter it. There are multitudes of moments when the
atmosphere is so surcharged with luxury that every pore of the body
becomes an ample gate for sensation to flow in, and one has simply to
sit still and be filled. In after-years the memory of books seems barren
or vanishing, compared with the immortal bequest of hours like these.
Other sources of illumination seem cisterns only; these are fountains.
They may not increase the mere quantity of available thought, but they
impart to it a qual