the ground carpeted with interchanging mosses and ferns, and the thousands of evergreen trees- 

 Hemlocks and Cedars, White Pines and Yellow Pines, Balsam Firs, Laurels and Cypresses — in such 

 majority that falling leaves are scarce missed. "What with this, and a labyrinth of glen-depths, 

 whei'e the windy gusts never reach, we only know winter by the snow — late autumn and early 

 spring differing little from summer, or mainly in temperature more inspiriting. * * * The 

 eye needs its medicine. Surrounded by evergreen woods, we look out upon perpetual summer, 

 as to foliage. * * * Live but near a sheltered Fir-grove, where the sun draws the perfume 

 from the resinous bark, and the air is unreached by the wind, and, though a delicate invalid, 

 you may pass half your January hours out of doors. Yet most persons choose exposed situations 

 for country residences, and surround the house with Elms, Oaks, and Maples, — trees naked half 

 the year. Witli a latitude of too many wintery months, but with a capricious climate, whose 

 summer days, departed by the almanac, may be, any morning, back at our door, it is surely best, 

 if possible, to be ready, at short notice, to realize them — to let it look as well as feel like sum- 

 mer — to see verdure and breathe perfume, as well as glow with the warm air that commonly 

 keeps perfume and verdure company." 



To have such scenes, many of us will have to wait a little, and call in the aid of ever- 

 green shrubbery. 



But to our book, IIow happy is the following little bit of word-painting, speaking to 

 the mind : 



"Spring is a beautiful piece of work, and not to be in the country to sec it done, is the not realizing 

 what glorious masters we are, and how cheerfully, minutely, and unflaggingly, the fiiir fingers of 

 the season broider the world fur us. Each April morning, to drop the reins upon the neck of 

 your horse, and look, charmed, around, seeing that nature did not go to bed, used up and tired, 

 the night before, as you did, but has been industriously busy upon the leaves and blossoms while 

 you were asleep — so much more advancedly lovely than yesterday — is somehow a feeling that 

 has in it the bliss of ownership. The morning seems made for you* the fields and sky seem 

 your roof and grounds; the air and sunshiue, fresh colors and changing light — all new and not 

 a second-hand thing to be seen — nothing to be cupboarded and kept over for to-morrow, or for 

 another guest — gives a delicious consciousness of being the first to be waited on, the one it was 

 all made and meant for. A city April, in comparison, is a thing potted and pickled, and retailed 

 to other customers as well." 



This, if we are not greatly mistaken, was never half so well said before, and bespeaks a 

 mind capable of the highest enjoyment of nature's beauty. His description of the Hem- 

 lock is poetry concentrated into prose. Observe — "tlie child-blossom and its predecessor 

 are heightening graces, each to the other — neitlier so beautiful alone, and both finding 

 room enough, and enjoying the same summer together. Parent and child are one glory. ^^ 



"May, 1853. — With this fertilizing May — the best mixed succession of rain and sunshine for 

 many a year — the deciduous trees so jumped into leaf, and were, all of a sudden, so prodigaly 

 massive and shady, that I began to think I had over-valued our wilderness of Firs, declaring Idle- 

 wild, as I did, to be independent of changing foliage in the preponderance of its woods of 

 evergreen. The Maples and Clie?tni;ts, Oaks, Dogwoods, and Willows, quite smothered us with 

 their spring-burst, I must own. But June, with its new dress for my slighted Hemlocks, has 

 brought me round ag;iin, and (till taken again by surprise, at least) I shall be inconstant no more. 

 Hemlocks are our pride at Idle wild. How wonderfully beautiful they are now — every finger- 

 tip of their outspread palms tliimbled with gold, and every tree looking as if all the sunsets 

 that had ever been steeped into its top were oozing out of it in drops. Of all Nature's renewals, 

 k this is the fairest. The old foliage forms such an eflFective contrast for the new. Tlie 

 blossom and his predecessor are heightening graces, each to the other — neither so beauti- 



