• ^l,\'raph by F . Mason Cood. llinat/Utd. 



"IN AUTUMxN THK GARDEN DEPENDS FOR ITS CllAKiM LESS, PERHAPS, ON FLOWERS 



THAN ON LEAVES." 



THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN 



By H. H. THOMAS 



THOUGHTS of autumn in the /.garden 

 are tinged with mehmcholy. tor 

 this is the season of the passing 

 flowers. How mournful, how sad is the 

 fading of the flowers ! How they are 

 fallen ! It seems only the other day that 

 the garden w'as in the full flush of its 

 beauty, brilliant with opening blossom, 

 redolent with the scent of fragrant })etals. 

 How ephemeral is their loveliness! If 

 only the flowers would die a beautiful 

 death, possibly we should feel their loss 

 less keenly, but since they droop and 

 wither to a mass of rotting petals, in- 

 voluntarily we think of the beauty that 



40 : 



once was theirs and conjure up visions 

 of the summer that has gone. To dream 

 dreams of a happy past is invariably 

 to feel dissatisfaction with the present. 

 Thus arises that tinge of sadness, that 

 touch of melancholy, indissolubly bound 

 up with thoughts of autumn, not because 

 autumn itself is actually a dreary time, 

 but ])ecause, by unconscious comparison, 

 we liken autumn, not to autumn but 

 to summer. Such comparison can bring 

 nothing but lamentation. How great a 

 mistake it is to compare the i)resent 

 with the past, and esj)ecially one season 

 of the >ear with another ! Each season, 



I ^, 



