INDIAN SUMMER 



he begins to perceive that he has Indian summers 

 in his bones, and does not quite know if he at 

 times be not separated from his season. These 

 lassitudes of maturity, when a man parts his hair 

 in the middle, but exposes the frost on his temples, 

 and mistakes the harking back of the senses for a 

 new season, are his Indian summers. He ought 

 to be very wary of them. His imagination is very 

 apt to break out in blossom, and his recollections 

 twitter and peep, as if winter were a myth or a 

 mere creed. You see that intimacy with outdoors 

 has its introspections and suspicions. Even a 

 hysterical peach tree sets you pondering. Given 

 a few pulses of the convalescence that abides in 

 the external world, and I do not see how a man in 

 a hut can help becoming more or less of a Thoreau 

 or a Montaigne not that they are at all alike, 

 for dear old Montaigne always reminds me of a 

 large cup of English breakfast tea, in which milk 

 and water make copiousness take the hue of 

 stimulation. 



Nevertheless, there was the amber day, calling 

 with an imitative croon, very much like a dowager 

 trying a lullaby. One must dance like a cobra to 

 these zithers, whether he will or not. Charlie and 

 I set out for one of those indeterminable rambles 

 which were always deliciously like reading Henry 

 James, for they led nowhere, but enticed us with 

 the suave glory of going. 



The atmosphere was like a great piece of copal, 

 its brilliancy slightly thickened to a slumberous 

 translucence ; that kind of voluptuousness that 



259 



