THE SCENE-SHIFTER 



" We are all going to the play or coming from it." — Dickens. 



In a few hours came "the season's difference." The 

 scene-shifter worked with almost magical haste, with 

 silence, and with supreme effect. The gloomy days 

 and nights of misty hill-tops and damp hollows, where 

 the grass was sodden and the air dull and irresponsive 

 to sound, gave wa}^ to bright sunshine, cloudless skies, 

 calm seas, echoing hills, and the tinge of that which for 

 lack of the ideal word we call "spring." Spring does 

 not visit the tropical coast, where vegetation does not 

 tolerate any period of rest. When plants are not 

 actuall}' romping with excess of vital force, as during 

 the height of the wet season, they grow with the haste 

 of summer. And yet immediately on the dispersal of 

 the mists of July the least observance could not fail to 

 recognise that a certain and elaborate change had taken 

 place. The mango-trees had been flowering for several 

 weeks in a trivial, half-hearted way, but when the sun 

 sent its thrills down into the moist soil the lemons and 

 pomeloes began to sweeten the air; the sunflower-tree 

 displayed its golden crowns among huge soft leaves, 

 and the last blooms of belated wattles fell, showing that 

 it is possible for tributes representative of May and 

 September to be paid on one and the same date. 



The scene-shifter came softly "as the small rain upon 

 the tender herb," but with an orchestra of his own. 



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