YELLOW 



grant, pale yellow blossoms of the witch-hazel need hardly be 

 expected till well on in September, when its leaves have fluttered 

 earthward and its fruit has ripened. Does the pleasure which 

 we experience at the spring-like apparition of this leafless yellow- 

 flowered shrub in the autumn woods arise from the same de- 

 praved taste which is gratified by strawberries at Christmas, I 

 wonder ? Or is it that in the midst of death we have a fore- 

 taste of life ; a prophecy of the great yearly resurrection which 

 even now we may anticipate? 



Thoreau's tastes in such directions were certainly not de- 

 praved, and he writes: "The witch-hazel loves a hill-side with 

 or without woods or shrubs. It is always pleasant to come upon 

 it unexpectedly as you are threading the woods in such places. 

 Methinks I attribute to it some elfish quality apart from its fame. 

 I love to behold its gray speckled stems." Under another date 

 he writes : " Heard in the night a snapping sound, and the fall 

 of some small body on the floor from time to time. In the 

 morning I found it was produced by the witch-hazel nuts on my 

 desk springing open and casting their seeds quite across my 

 chamber, hard and stony as these nuts were. ' ' 



The Indians long ago discovered the value of its bark for me- 

 dicinal purposes, and it is now utilized in many well-known 

 extracts. The forked branches formerly served as divining-rods 

 in the search for water and precious ores. This belief in its 

 mysterious power very possibly arose from its suggestive title, 

 which Dr. Prior says should be spelled wy^-hazel, as it was 

 called after the wych-elm, whose leaves it resembles, and which 

 was so named because the chests termed in old times " wyches " 

 were made of its wood 



His hall rofe was full of bacon flytches, 

 The chambre charged was with wyches 

 Full of egges, butter, and chese.* 



NOTE. The flowers of the American Woodbine and of the Fly Honey- 

 suckle (p. 228), and of the Golden Corydalis (p. 192) are also yellow. 

 * Hazlitt's Early Popular Poetry. 



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