March — Apricot Blossoms. 87 



and amongst these some peaches and apricots. They 

 are in full bloom towards the end of March, and of all 

 the beautiful sights to be seen at this time of the year 

 I know of none to be compared to these old peach-trees 

 with their wealth of rosy bloom, which would be beauti- 

 ful in any situation, but is so especially in this because 

 there happen to be some mellow-tinted walls behind 

 them, the very background that a painter would delight 

 in. There is some pretty coloring in the apricot blos- 

 soms, on account of the pink calyx and the pinkish brown 

 of the young twigs, which has an influence on the effect, 

 but the peach is incomparably richer"; and after the 

 grays of wintry trees and wintry skies the sight is glad- 

 dened beyond measure by the flush of peach-blossom 

 and the blue of the clear spring heaven. But to enjoy 

 these two fresh and pure colors to the utmost we need 

 some quiet coloring in the picture, and nothing supplies 

 this better than such old walls as those of the monastic 

 buildings at the Val Ste. Veronique ; walls that Nature 

 has been painting in her own way for full four hundred 

 years, with the most delicate changes of gray and brown 

 and dark gleamings of bronze and gold. There is some- 

 thing, too, which gratifies other feelings than those of 

 simple vision in the renewal of the youth of Nature, 

 contrasting with the steady decay of any ancient human 

 work ; and in the contrast, between her exquisiteness, 

 her delicacy, her freshness, as exhibited in a thing so 

 perfect as a fresh peach-blossom, with its rosy color, its 

 almond-perfume, its promise of luscious fruit, — and the 

 roughness of all that man can do, even at his best. 



