APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY. 275 



ready for the summer's short act. Nowhere is Nature's 

 hocus-pocus carried on so wonderfully nowhere her 

 scene-shifting so inconceivably rapid. You may literally 

 see her movements. I have watched the birdcherry at 

 my window. Two days ago, and it was still the same 

 dried up spectre, whose every form, during the long winter, 

 the vacant eye had studiously examined while the thoughts 

 were far distant yesterday, like the painter's Daphne, it 

 it was sprouting out at every finger, and to-day it has 

 shaken out its whole complement of leaves, and is throwing 

 a verdant twilight over my darkened room. The whole 

 air is full of the soft stirring sounds of the swollen buds 

 snapping and cracking into life, and impregnated with 

 the perfume of the fresh, oily leaves. The waters are full 

 and clear the skies blue and serene night and day are 

 fast blending into one continuous stream of soft light, and 

 this our new existence is one perpetual feast. Ob, winter ! 

 where is thy victory? The resurrection of spring speaks 

 volumes.' 



The same pencil has painted the passing away of 

 summer : ' The beauties of autumn, and the moral of its 

 yellow leaves, are seen and felt in all countries. Nowhere, 

 however, I am inclined to think, can the former be so 

 resplendent, or the latter so touching, as in the land where 

 I am still a sojourn er. In our temperate isle autumn 

 may be contemplated as the glorious passing away of the 

 well-matured the radiant death-bed of the ripe in years 

 while here the brilliant colours on earth and sky are 

 like the hectic cheek and kindling eye of some beautiful 

 being whose too hasty development has been but the 

 presage of a premature decay. Thus it is that the vast 

 plains and woods of Estonia are now displaying the most 

 gorgeous colours of their palette, ere the white brush of 

 winter sweep their beauties from sight, while the golden 

 and crimson wreaths of deciduous trees, peeping from 

 amongst the forests of sober pines, may be compared to 

 gay lichens sprinkling their hues over a cold grey rock, or 



