120 AUTUMN TIDES. 



spring yearning and restlessness is represented in one 

 by the increased desire to travel. 



Spring is the inspiration, fall the expiration. Both 

 seasons have their equinoxes, both their filmy, hazy 

 air, their ruddy forest tints, their cold rains, their 

 drenching fogs, their mystic moons; both have the 

 same solar light and warmth, the same rays of the 

 sun ; yet, after all, how different the feelings which 

 they inspire! One is the morning, the other the 

 evening ; one is youth, the other is age. 



The difference is not merely in us ; there is a sub- 

 tle difference in the air and in the influences that 

 emanate upon us from the dumb forms of nature. 

 All the senses report a difference. The sun seems to 

 have burned out. One recalls the notion of Herod- 

 otus, that he is grown feeble, and retreats to the south 

 because he can no longer face the cold and the storms 

 from the north. There is a growing potency about 

 his beams in spring ; a waning splendor about them 

 in fall. One is the kindling fire ; the other the sub- 

 siding flame. 



It is rarely that an artist succeeds in painting un- 

 mistakably the difference between sunrise and sunset ; 

 and it is equally a trial of his skill to put upon can- 

 vas the difference between early spring and late fall, 

 say between April and November. It was long ago 

 observed that the shadows are more opaque in the 

 morning than in the evening ; the struggle between 

 the light and the darkness more marked, the gloom 

 more solid, the contrasts more sharp, etc. The rays 

 of the morning sun chisel out and cut down the shad- 



