THE FALL OF THE LEAF. 211 



a fashion which would be impossible with our 

 slow, long-drawn, changeable seasons. Yet, 

 in spite of all this, I am not prepared to 

 admit that even on the St. Lawrence or the 

 Hudson you can often see anything more 

 brilliant in its way than the yearly September 

 display on our Thames about Nuneham and 

 Pangbourne, or the Founder's Tower at 

 Magdalen, clad from pinnacle to base in 

 crimson Virginia creeper during the first 

 fortnight of October term. Such outbursts 

 of pure warm colour are certainly rarer here 

 than in America ; but when once seen they 

 enable one at least to realise, if my memory 

 serves me right, what Canadian woodlands 

 are like when the maples are set ablaze with 

 red and orange in the mellow evenings of 

 that too rare season, a successful Indian 

 summer. 



It is a curious phenomenon, this annual 

 fall of all the leaves from almost all the trees 

 in northern climates ; and yet use has so 

 dulled us to its strangeness that we seldom 



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