52 A Foretaste of Autumn 



and beyond, where the rank weeds have held 

 their own against the cropping cows that 

 have tramped through them all summer, is 

 that wealth of dull gold, the trailing dodder, 

 a gilded web of a gigantic spider, the one 

 with purple legs, perhaps, that we saw not 

 far off this very day. This, too, is an au- 

 tumnal plant in its suggestions : its color like 

 the leaves of oaks and beeches when the cool 

 nights come. So much in this world is what 

 it suggests rather than what it really is ! 

 With what horror would we look upon the 

 world if it was merely fafts jumbled and 

 tumbled together like a load of bricks dumped 

 from the cart. I have in mind such an un- 

 fortunate who is zealously digging for what 

 he supposes is never upon the surface. Never 

 a pebble but is a pebble only to him and not 

 a water-worn fragment of a great rock forma- 

 tion. And what, after all, are these naked 

 fads to him who cannot use them ? My 

 friend has hedged himself in with fafts. He 

 has built a stone wall about him that his 

 ignorance cannot stray, and in such a funny 

 predicament he poses as an apostle of wis- 

 dom. No fafts without fancy, if you please. 

 They will do to dash out your brains with, 



