226 Walks in New England 



flowers, before earth is ripe for this miraculous 

 charm. 



That one wonderful day revealed the ideal type 

 of the exceptional season. Seldom in a lifetime 

 may one hope to see and to feel that wondrous dream 

 of air and light and exquisite illusion. To one 

 who viewed the earth from a mountain peak, all 

 fields and forests, streams and ponds, blended in 

 phantasmagoria. There may be azure hazes veil 

 ing and masking the landscape at many seasons : 

 in early April when the snows are melting ; in 

 June when summer grows sensuous ; in August 

 when the heat settles, gray and intimate, on the 

 bosom of earth, and all the garniture of Nature 

 is suffused with fervent sunlight ; in September 

 when the leaves put on colour and the winds are 

 whist; in October when all the woods are glo 

 rious and the delicate blue tinge sets off the glow 

 ing tones of trees and shrubs and dying ferns. 

 But such a transforming skyey hue as charges 

 the Indian Summer landscape is so different from 

 all other azures of the advancing year that no 

 one who has viewed the scene under such a light 

 can be misled. 



On that rarest of days the earth lay in peace 

 and transcendent slumber. The light western 

 breeze scarcely stirred the pine leaves high up in 

 the ether. The hemlocks were whispering softly 



