April — Play of L ight and Shadow, i o i 



XXI. 



April — Play of Light and Shadow — Genuine April Weather — Hills 

 in April Weather — The Willow in April — Streams in April — Con- 

 stable — His observation about Clouds — His Affection for the 

 Spring-time — Chaucer — His wonderful Passion for Landscape — 

 His description of Spring — The Draba Verna — Figwort Ranun- 

 culus — Wordsworth's Poem on the Little Celandine — Buttercups 

 — The Lesser Celandine in Decay — Unresisting nature of Decay 

 in Plants — Resistance to Decay in Men — Beautiful Association of 

 the name Celandine. 



IT happened that the month of April opened with 

 April's own characteristic weather. March had 

 ended with a gray sky through which sunshine filtered, 

 as it were, in a way much more trying to the strongest 

 eyesight than the intensest glare of summer. All Nature 

 was a picture of the most various and delicate grays, with 

 fresh green sparingly scattered ; a sort of coloring quite 

 peculiar to the season and full of a quiet charm, when 

 we are in a mood quiet enough to enjoy it. But the 

 first of April brought with it a perfect revolution. 

 Instead of the almost uniform gray sky, broken only by 

 gleams of semi-transparence in the universal cloud- 

 canopy, we had now separate clouds, having a magnifi- 

 cent individuality, and sunshine in perfect though tem- 

 porary splendor. No weather is, to my feeling, so 

 delightful as this genuine April weather. The play of 

 light and shadow, so rapid in its transitions, so powerful 



