48 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



if it is ever to be for those years which are 

 the crowning glory of a life well spent. 



Brown and gray are sombre colors, hues of 

 death and decay. Too often they follow the 

 green of youth with none of the brighter tints 

 intervening. The crop is harvested before full 

 maturity. The seed shrivels and shrinks. Life 

 is a failure, a succession of years of longing for 

 that which never comes, which never can be. 



Black is for mourning, for despair, for grief 

 over brown and gray, for the shroud to cover 

 their faces, hide their faults. It is a hue sel- 

 dom seen in^nature for her days and years are 

 full of promise, too precious to be wasted in 

 long spent grief. Green and the hues of per- 

 fect maturity are those in which she most de- 

 lights. Browns and grays and blacks are for 

 her waste places, her deserts and mountain tops, 

 her late autumns and winters; greens for her 

 oases, valleys and prairies. 



White is for innocence, for purity, for the 

 first hours of the new born plant and animal, 

 for the mantle which shall hide the black 

 despair 'of deepest winter, but which shall be 

 uplifted to disclose the first glimpse of the 

 garb of green which follows the great awaken- 

 ing. 



After my noon meal I seek the shelter of the 

 oak tree which grows on the brink of the cliff 

 in front of my tent. No sooner am I seated 



