288 THE RING OF NATURE 



away from everything that made summer life 

 worth living. 



There must be some thrill of renewing life 

 shooting from the ash branch into the thrush's 

 legs, or the clear-eyed songster can see that the 

 buds of the sycamore have not given up the 

 struggle. I can see as much from my study 

 window, which is on a level with certain tree- 

 tops, and the wild people who live among such 

 things must have countless evidence that summer is 

 not forgotten. At every touch of milder weather 

 the crocuses push out their bundles swollen with 

 blossom-buds. When the frost comes, it cannot 

 drive them back, and their growth remains through 

 the severest weather as an encouragement for the 

 faint-hearted. 



As we look round again at our dead world we 

 must take back the epithet. The twigs of every 

 tree have the suppleness of life and a certain 

 purple glow of hope. We catch that best at some 

 distance and at a good mile it is not hidden from 

 us. A dead beech is recognizable in a wood of 

 live beeches, however recently dead it may be. 

 Even though it has all its twigs, there is an absence 

 of circulation, a leprosy of skin that marks it out 

 from the purple health of its fellows. The willows 

 are even going into the red and the orange that 

 presage in the several species their bursting into 

 bud, and the cornel has the October crimson in 

 its twigs that is our sole excuse for admitting it 

 to the garden. 



