SEPTEMBER. 273 



vides for the supply of her neighborhood. And while 

 thus employed, she feels the reward of the just in the 

 pleasing contemplation of the good she may perform, 

 when winter comes with its fevers and colds. 



There is no season when the landscape presents so 

 beautiful an appearance just before sunset, as during this 

 month. The grass has a singular velvety greenness, being 

 without any mixture of downy tassels and panicles of 

 seeds. For the present covering of the fields is chiefly 

 the second growth of vegetation, after the first has been 

 mowed by the farmer or cropped by the grazing herds. 

 The herbage displays little but the leaves, which have 

 been thickened in their growth and made green by the 

 early rains of autumn. When the atmosphere has its 

 usual autumnal clearness and the sun is just declining, 

 while his rays gleam horizontally over the fields, the 

 plain exhibits the most brilliant verdure, unlike that of 

 the earlier months. When this wide landscape of uni- 

 form greenness is viewed in opposition to the blue firma- 

 ment, it seems as if the earth arid the sky were vying 

 with each other in the untarnished loveliness of their 

 appropriate colors. 



There is usually a serenity of the weather for the greater 

 part of September, unknown to the other autumn months. 

 Yet this is no time for inaction ; for the temperate cli- 

 mate, too pleasant for confinement, and too cool for indo- 

 lent repose, invites even the weary to ramble. Of all 

 the months, the climate of September is the most equable 

 and salubrious, and nearly the same temperature is waft- 

 ed from every quarter of the heavens. The sea-breezes 

 spring up from the ocean almost with the mildness of the 

 southwest, and the rude north-wind has been softened 

 into a delightful blandness by his tender dalliance with 

 summer. 



One of the charms of the present month is the profusion 



12* R 



