256 FAMILIAR FEATURES OF THE ROADSIDE. 



en yellow ; the white trunks are spotted with palest 

 of violet-blue shadows. The lichen -covered rocks in 

 the stone wall are not gray, but green -gray of a sagey 

 tone spotted with bits of brownish crimson. The 

 beech bole is a mixture of pearly white and bluish 

 gray, broadly spread with lilac shadows, and the 

 leaves are the palest possible Naples yellow. The 

 Virginia creeper (Ampelopsis quinquefolid) has 

 turned not a pure crimson, but a deep, rich, cardinal 

 red and maroon, and the berries with stems of coral- 

 red are a misty cadet- blue. Everywhere the shadows 

 on the roadside are bluish, and not a hint of black 

 or neutral gray is visible. I can not prove this, of 

 course, by bluntly asserting the fact, but I could dem- 

 onstrate the truth of the statement by the aid of 

 my paint-box and a bit of white paper. If we cut a 

 small hole in the paper and at arm's length view the 

 shadow through it we will certainly see the blue. 



The full color of a tree or a mountain can not ~be 

 measured if our attention is distracted by details of 

 form which we see with remarkable ease. Subtility 

 of color is not so readily perceived. It needs two 

 pictures of the maple-lined road, one showing its 

 June color and the other its October color, to prove 

 that the light which shines in our faces and the 

 shadow which lies ahead of us across the road are 

 radically different in these two months because of 



