THE OAK IN AUGUST 307 



moving upward in wide circles, the sound of their voices 

 coming fainter and fainter back to earth, until at that 

 vast height they seemed no bigger than humble-bees 



This clarity of the atmosphere had a striking effect, 

 too, on the appearance of the trees, and I could not 

 help noticing the superiority of the oak to all other 

 forest trees in this connection. There comes a time in 

 late summer when at last it loses that "glad light 

 grene" which has distinguished it among its dark- 

 leafed neighbours, and made it in our eyes a type of 

 unfading spring and of everlastingness. It grows dark, 

 too, at last, and is as dark as a cypress or a cedar of 

 Lebanon; but observe how different this depth of 

 colour is from that of the elm. The elm, too, stands 

 alone, or in rows, or in isolated groups in the fields, and 

 in the clear sunshine its foliage has a dull, summer- 

 worn, almost rusty green. There is no such worn and 

 weary look in the foliage of the oak in August and 

 September. It is of a rich, healthy green, deep but 

 undirnmed by time and weather, and the leaf has a 

 gloss to it. Again, on account of its manner of growth, 

 with widespread branches and boughs and twigs well 

 apart, the foliage does not come before us as a mere 

 dense mass of green an intercepting cloud, as in a 

 painted tree; but the sky is seen through it, and 

 against the sky are seen the thousand thousand indivi- 

 dual leaves, clear cut and beautiful in shape. 



It was one of my daily pleasures during this fine 

 weather to go out and look at one of the solitary oak 



