is stationary and unchangeable, and there are some solitary trees here and
there that undergo the unshifting illumination at the closest quarters;
the light that knows no hours and makes no journey gleams near upon the
motion of the leaves and glosses their faces. It is beforehand with the
twilight, so that the dusk when it comes finds the place taken, and it
will not let the tree go until the light of day flows in fully, and dawn
is over.

[Illustration: KENSINGTON GARDENS.]

The sharp green of the plane-tree is never covered, nor are the delicately
sprinkled spots of the poplar-leaves mingled and massed, in these solitary
citizen trees. It is in the avenues and glades of Kensington Gardens
that Night has her way. There amends are made for the common day by a
double mystery. Not a tree is so much as to be known by name; all kinds
sigh together in the dark. The mass is sombre and alive, but betrays
neither leaf nor colour. As violently as the spirit of the woods was
driven away, through all the long daylight, by the sound, the breath, the
blackness, and the stamp and seal of London, which permit nothing
visible--not a blade of grass--to go unmarked by the proprietorship of
this despotic city; so swiftly as the spirit of the woods was hooted and
stared into banishment by day, so quickly, so intently, and in such a
union of multitude does it softly return by night. Solitude comes, the
movement of the forest comes, and remoteness, which by day must be sought
where it abides, comes at a stride to London, and sits in the branches of
the trees. Profound is the forest and august the sky whence the great and
melancholy spirit of the woods comes to restore these daily altered elms.

Look but at the avenue of the Broad Walk at night, as it is seen from its
northern gate. Some midsummer daylight hovers up the sky, but the coolness
and purity of subtle light are subtly mixed with the thin brown that is
the colour of London. A narrow space of this sombre and delicate sky lies
straight between the two masses of the trees, and they are unmarked,
unbroken, by any single branch or twig astray. The symmetry is absolute;
the wide pathway is one faint grey from foreground to distance. Close to
you, two sentinel trees, one on either hand, hold the gateway of the
majestic avenue, and these only are green, on these only shines the
gaslight of the road. These two are among those London trees that never
bathe in darkness. You can see thei