NOVEMBER 189 



in a thick white fog. There have been 

 troublous times of wet and wind with 

 alternating frosts. The earth is saturated 

 with moisture : so much so that the very 

 worms are made uncomfortable in it, and 

 wriggle up to the outer air, making tracks 

 across the wet walks where they lie at last 

 all pale and watery, and somewhat un- 

 pleasanter than usual. 



Change and decay in the garden have 

 gone on the same. The passion flower 

 and the blue ceanothus were planted, 

 bloomed and flourished for a season, and 

 then last winter perished in the frost. The 

 red pyraneanthus planted with them is in its 

 place, all scarlet, and netted from the birds. 

 About the middle of the month a great 

 south wind raged for all one night and 

 day, and our one young American oak 

 fell, snapped close to the root : so there is 

 an end of the rich autumnal foliage which 

 had been a joy each year while it lived 

 with us. A yet greater loss is one of the 

 mighty elms, in the house meadow. It 

 broke right in half, and fell with such 

 violence that big limbs of it dug into the 



