276 EFFECT OF AN EARLY FROST. 



more influenced than those of a drier nature ; but it 

 served at the time to indicate the portion of moisture 

 that was escaping from a given horizontal surface. 

 From the invisible and insensible nature of evaporation, 

 its influences are not always considered ; but such an 

 action on the surfaces of things as that related above, 

 must put into operation all the inherent powers of mat- 

 ter susceptible of impulse, and probably would produce 

 effects which we might suppose to be accomplished by 

 the agency of other means. 



* Nov. 10. 'Many effusions of the mind have been 

 produced by the approach or existence of the seasons 

 of our year, which seem naturally to actuate our bodily 

 or mental feelings through the agency of the eye, or 

 temperature of the air. The peculiar silence that pre- 

 vails in autumn, like the repose of wearied nature, 

 seems to mark the decline and termination of being in 

 many things that animated our summer months ; the 

 singing of the bird is rare, feeble, and melancholy ; the 

 hum of the insect is not heard ; the breeze passes by 

 us like a sigh from nature : we hear it, and it is gone for 

 ever. But it is the vegetable tribes, which at this sea* 

 son most particularly influence our feeling, and excite 

 our attention. We see the fruits of the earth stored up 

 for our use in that dull season " in which there will be 

 neither earing nor harvest," the termination and reward 

 of the labors of man. But this day, November 10, 

 presented such a scene of life and mortality, that it 

 could not be passed by without viewing it as an adino- 

 ii it ion, a display of what has been, and is. There had 

 occurred during the night a severe white frost ; and, 

 standing by a green-house filled with verdure, fragrance, 

 and blossom, I was surrounded in every direction by the 

 parents of all this gaiety, in blackness, dissolution, and 

 decay. But the very day before, they had attracted the 

 most merited admiration and delight by the splendor of 

 their bloom and the vigor of their growth; but now 

 just touched by the icy finger of the night, they had 

 become a mass of unsightly ruins and confusion. Once 

 the gay belles of the parterre, they fluttered their hour, 

 a generation of existent loveliness ; their youthful sue- 



