AUTUMN TIDES. 121 



ows in a way those of the setting sun do not. Then 

 the sunlight is whiter and newer in the morning, 

 not so yellow and diffused. A difference akin to this 

 is true of the two seasons I am speaking of. The 

 spring is the morning sunlight, clear and determined; 

 the autumn the afternoon rays, pensive, lessening, 

 golden. 



Does not the human frame yield to and sympa- 

 thize with the seasons ? Are there not more births 

 in the spring and more deaths in the fall ? In the 

 spring one vegetates ; his thoughts turn to sap ; an- 

 other kind of activity seizes him ; he makes new 

 wood which does not harden till past midsummer. 

 For my part, I find all literary work irksome from 

 April to August ; my sympathies run in other chan- 

 nels ; the grass grows where meditation walked. As 

 fall approaches, the currents mount to the head again. 

 But my thoughts do not ripen well till after there has 

 been a frost. The burrs will not open much before 

 that. A man's thinking, I take it, is a kind of com- 

 bustion, as is the ripening of fruits and leaves, and he 

 wants plenty of oxygen in the air. 



Then the earth seems to have become a positive 

 magnet in the fall ; the forge and anvil of the sun 

 have had their effect. In the spring it is negative to 

 all intellectual conditions and drains one of his light- 

 ning. 



To-day, October 21st, I found the air in the bushy 

 fields and lanes under the woods loaded with the per- 

 fume of the witch-hazel a sweetish, sickening odor. 

 With the blooming of this bush, Nature says, " posi- 



