126 THE heart's-ease. 



Yet it is when we are somewhat removed, and 

 able to take a general view of the landscape, that 

 such loveliness is rightly appreciated. Walking 

 under the shade of our own wilherinfj bovvers, 

 where the damp, fallen leaves impede our path, 

 and mar the lingering beauty of our borders, it is 

 by no means so pleasant. The visitation touches 

 us loo nearly, our individual comforts are too 

 closely trenched upon ; and gladly would we bar- 

 gain that, after going forth to look upon the beauty 

 of neighbouring plantations in their progress to- 

 wards utter decay, we might return to our especial 

 garden, finding it exempt from the universal doom ; 

 as thickly clustering with green leaves as when 

 summer first put on her finished livery. 



I have thought of this, as illustrating in some 

 degree my feeling, when I meet with narratives of 

 interesting characters, whose passage from mortal 

 to immortal life is arrayed in new glories, like the 

 fading woods of autumn. I gaze, and admire, and 

 rejoice, on behalf of the privileged saints, whose 

 hour of approaching departure is the loveliesL pe- 

 riod of their visible sojourn here : but when it is 

 upon mine own familiar friend that the visitation 

 comes — when the tree that shelters me is to be 

 stripped, when the verdure that gladdens my re- 

 treat is to fade away, — how different are the 

 feelings excited ! To the eye of a more remote 

 spectator, the withering of my bowers may form, 



