32 THE OAK. 



side, just as the resemblance of the shake in music 

 to the play of moonlight upon rippled water lies 

 outside of any actual connection, yet is as much a 

 part of the method and order of nature as the 

 ripple of the water itself. So with the charming 

 similitude of the painted leaves of autumn to the 

 variegated western sky of evening. The close of 

 the year and the close of the day acquire each one 

 of them a tinted loveliness peculiarly their own, 

 marked and soul-inspiring in the highest degree, 

 yet, as to their own physical causes, in no measure 

 connected or comparable. The two things lie out- 

 side, yet are alike, plainly because God says, death, 

 departure, decay, need not necessarily be ugly and 

 disagreeable to look at : they may be made lovely 

 as life, yea, lovelier ; and if there be wretchedness 

 in their aspect, probably it is our own eyes that 

 look obliquely. Whether it be a soul about to 

 cross the river that has no bridge, or trees that 

 are about to cast their vestures, and be for awhile, 

 as it were, dead, or the day that is to be exchanged 

 for starlight, it is still compatible with its passing 

 away that the light of beauty shall be diffused 

 there. 



The other fern referred to as being often and 

 very naturally associated with the oak is, in truth, 

 like the Dryopteris, the image of an oak-profile, but 

 it is not from that circumstance that the connection 

 has been supposed to exist. When the stem of the 



