IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH 243 



leaf-stalk into the stem. Thus the leaves fall virtually 

 dead, almost empty except of waste. They are like 

 empty houses from which the tenants have flitted, breaking 

 and burning some of the furnishings as they went, leaving 

 little more than ashes on the hearth. But Nature is ever 

 generous of beauty, and the dying leaves have a literal 

 " beauty for ashes." Theirs is a euthanasia, and if we 

 are at first inclined with the poets to weep with the wither- 

 ing, listening mournfully to " the ground- whirl of the 

 perished leaves of hope, the wind of Death's imperishable 

 wing," we must learn a deeper plant -lore, that the leaves 

 which by their living have made the plant rich, make it 

 no poorer when they die; that their flush of death is a 

 prophecy of the petal's glory for what is a petal but a 

 transfigured leaf ? and that even when fallen they may 

 serve as cradle-clothes for next year's seedlings. The 

 fact remains that just as the progressive life of the species 

 demands the death of individuals, and is within limits 

 unmoved thereby, so the forest-tree lives strongly on 

 though the leaves fall from its thousand branches. There 

 are those who cannot look upon the tree in its Autumn 

 glory without seeing the bare skeleton behind; but they 

 must learn to look longer, and then they will see that the 

 branches are already covered with next year's buds. 



Ill 



We hear another note of Autumn when we listen to 

 the calls of the migratory birds, as they pass overhead by 

 night, or congregate with excited clamouring before start- 

 ing on their southward journey. It is the note of autumnal 

 restlessness. Many little spiders show this, and pass from 

 field to field on silken parachutes, which the Germans 

 sometimes call " Der fliegende Sommer." There are also 



