1E3K NUTTY AUTUMN 2S^gBQg>E 



than the green of each separate blade, if gathered, 

 lies among the bunches, a little, perhaps, like the 

 hue of the narrow pointed leaves of the reeds. It 

 is caught only for a moment, and looked at steadily 

 it goes. Among the grass, the hawkweeds, one or 

 two dandelions, and a stray buttercup, all yellow, 

 favour the illusion. By the bushes there is a 

 double row of pale buff bryony leaves ; these, too, 

 help to increase the sense of a secondary colour. 



The atmosphere holds the beams, and abstracts 

 from them th-eir white brilliance. They come 

 slower with a drowsy light, which casts a less de- 

 fined shadow of the still oaks. The yellow and 

 brown leaves in the oaks, in the elms, and the 

 beeches, in their turn affect the rays, and retouch 

 them with their own hue. An immaterial mist 

 across the fields looks like a cloud of light hover- 

 ing on the stubble : the light itself made visible. 



The tawniness is indistinct, it haunts the sun- 

 shine, and is not to be fixed, any more than you 

 can say where it begins and ends in the complexion 

 of a brunette. Almost too large for their cups, 

 the acorns have a shade of the same hue now 

 before they become brown. As it withers, the 

 many-pointed leaf of the white bryony and the bine 

 as it shrivels, in like manner, do their part. The 

 white thistle-down, which stays on the bursting 

 thistles because there is no wind to waft it away, 

 173 



