THE FALL OF THE LEAF 



and the dead. This is fine surgery, that the scar 

 should be ready before the operation is performed. 



Virtually dead the leaves now are, empty houses, 

 all dismantled, with little more than ashes on the 

 hearth. But these ashes how glorious ! for in 

 yellow and orange, in red and purple, in crimson 

 and scarlet, the withering leaves shine forth. They 

 are transfigured in the very article of death, in the 

 low beams of the autumn sun. The yellowness is 

 often due to breaking up of the green colouring 

 matter called chlorophyll ; the brighter tints are 

 due to the presence of special pigments, which are 

 by-products or waste-products of the leaf's intense 

 life. 



Finally the leaves fall gently from the trees, or, 

 after writhing and rustling in the wind, as if loath 

 to be separated, are violently wrenched off and 

 whirled along the ground. But the tree is not 

 really impoverished by the yearly loss of its leaves, 

 while they, on the other hand, weathered, faded and 

 torn, and mouldered by fungi, are buried by earth- 

 worms, to form, with the help of bacteria, ^the 

 vegetable mould in which are cradled the seedlings 

 of another year. 



169 



