106 THE LIFE OF TEE FIELDS. 



JANUARY IN THE SUSSEX WOODS. 



The lost leaves measure our years ; they are gone as 

 the days are gone, and the bare branches silently speak 

 of a new year, slowly advancing to its buds, its foliage, 

 and fruit. Deciduous trees associate with human life 

 as this yew never can. Clothed in its yellowish-green 

 needles, its tarnished green, it knows no hope or 

 sorrow ; it is indifferent to winter, and does not look 

 forward to summer. With their annual loss of leaves, 

 and renewal, oak and elm and ash and beech seem to 

 stand by us and to share our thoughts. There is no 

 wind at the edge of the wood, and the few flakes of 

 snow that fall from the overcast sky flutter as they 

 drop, now one side higher and then the other, as the 

 leaves did in the still hours of autumn. The delicacy 

 of the outer boughs of the great trees visible against 

 the dark background of cloud is as beautiful in its 

 own way as the massed foliage of summer. Each 

 slender bough is drawn out to a line ; line follows line 

 as shade grows under the pencil, but each of these 

 lines is separate. Great boles of beech, heavy timber 

 at the foot, thus end at their summits in the lightest 

 and most elegant pencilling. Where the birches are 

 tall, sometimes the number and closeness of these bare 



