AUTUMN 109 



dwellers amid the hills, who know not the 

 sweltering August fogs and hazes of the 

 shore ! 



Autumn color is obviously a result of 

 ripening. You find it without frost. In 

 October the maples are often as brilliant in 

 Florida as they are in Maine, and the con- 

 trast they make with the dark green of the 

 palms and the lush green of the under- 

 growth is startling. We need pure air, 

 however, for this color; and the town is 

 gray and brown, as it always is, the shade- 

 trees merely withering. The west- and 

 east-side streets of New York are the 

 ugliest places in all the earth. Every 

 spear of grass, every tree, has been care- 

 fully rooted up, that brawling humanity 

 may have nothing green in its eye and its 

 way ; and if in better streets you find a row 

 of starveling maples, they show no gaiety 

 in these days. Yet just across the river 

 the noble Palisades are sheeted in reds and 

 yellows that fruit in the sun resplendently. 

 And even in our yard the evil air steals in 

 and rusts the leaves where they should 

 glow. The blossoms of the gourd no 



