These September Days 169 



mastering than the spell of these days of lingering 

 farewell ? Long since, in the later July, the fore 

 telling came, one knew not how, in a day when 

 the air breathed some quality that was not of sum 

 mer. Then weeks followed without another hint 

 of the impending change, when suddenly it came 

 again, and the maples near to die began to redden 

 and the ferns to blanch in the woods, and the key 

 of fall was subtly sounded, not to be lost again 

 except in northwest winds and snows. The In 

 dian pipe and the beech-drops from the forest 

 mold took the place of the pyrola and the pip- 

 sissewa, and the orchis family had the coral-root 

 for representative instead of the habenarias, and 

 the myriad funguses arose to add rich hues to the 

 neutral ground of the fallen leaves of former years, 

 and along the roadsides the asters and golden-rods 

 began to multiply in variety. Now they are all 

 here, the copious glories of our fall, with their 

 adagios of purple and lavender and white, their 

 allegros of bright yellows and oranges, their gen 

 erous modulations of tone, a simultaneous sym 

 phony, let us say, in which all the movements are 

 performed at once, and yet all accord. Nature is 

 not really like an orchestra, in sound or in its par 

 allel of colour, but as all beauty is correlated and 

 congruous, her utterance is colour and tone and 

 feeling and thought all in one and all at once, 



