I92 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



are " happy " with the flowers that tell of spring, with 

 the remembrance of days that are no more ; and the 

 Laureate's beautiful words touch with a tender power the 

 chord with which memory faithfully knits together the 

 opening and the closing of human life. True, indeed, 

 the autumn crocus is not the same flower as the spring 

 crocus. It has hues deeper and more intense. It 

 speaks of change and decay. Nature never goes back 

 altogether to the point from which she started ; and she 

 renews only some of the features of her dead past. So 

 the joys of our early life which we recall in late years 

 are not the same as when they stirred our young blood ; 

 we colour them with the deeper and tenderer hues of 

 our own spirit. The past seems to us so lovely because 

 the present reflects upon it its own matured beauty and 

 mournful intensity ; just as the level light of the after- 

 noon transfigures with a warmer glow the trees and 

 flowers that stood forth clear and cold in the morning 

 rays. But the golden harvest, and the bright autumnal 

 foliage, and the red fire of sunset burning low, are 

 nearer the eternal fruition and the everlasting renewal 

 than the field of the sower, and the April woodland, 

 and the dewy sunrise. The gold of the withered leaf 

 is that of the streets of the New Jerusalem ! 



In the physical sphere of man there are numerous 

 instances of the spring crocus blooming again in the 

 autumn. The cutting of new teeth and the growth of 

 young hair in old age are by no means so infrequent as 

 we might suppose. The eagle's power of self-renewal 

 has been manifested by many an aged form. And the 



