282 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



of the rose is left for the bee and butterfly and moth to 

 distribute. 



Ecstatically sweet as the early Spring was with its many 

 fancies that came with the unfolding leaves, so immitigably 

 sad is the time of their fall. We most of us have grown so 

 accustomed to the falling of the leaves that we do not count 

 it a curious phenomenon ; we have also grown so familiar 

 with the growing green on the trees day by day in Spring that 

 scarcely any emotion of either joy or sorrow is felt at the 

 leaves' birth and death. Has the yearly change dulled the 

 appreciation of the majority of us, one wonders ? change 

 of leaf from new-born emerald to darker green, from green 

 to gold and red and brown ? Here in this country the 

 novelty of leaf-shedding can be enjoyed ; for as we all know, 

 the trees of the tropics are practically evergreen, suffering 

 no regular periodical loss of foliage. Amid this scene of 

 pathos is there no joy left, are there no lessons to be learnt ? 

 Has not almost every writer found something fresh to say 

 regarding the world in its ruin at ended Autumn ? Of this 

 season Landor says : " The damps of Autumn sink into the 

 leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall ; and 

 thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached 

 from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded 

 sorrow." 



