Summer's Afterglow 245 



When snow falls and lies in November, it is strange 

 to see the oak-crowns standing in full summer 

 green over fields of January whiteness. Other 

 trees, especially the wych-elms in the lanes and 

 pastures, and the limes and horse-chestnuts by 

 the garden bounds are already almost as naked as 

 under the February rains ; their aspect of bareness 

 is not diminished by the half-score of discoloured 

 leaves which cling here and there to the extreme 

 point of some spray. Between the two extremes 

 of the green and full-leaved oak and the naked 

 garden-limes come a hundred gradations of bareness, 

 and the variety of many a hundred hues. Behind 

 the strong, full shape of the golden elm-crown, 

 the dark and interlacing lines of the half stripped 

 plane or walnut boughs contrast with a doubled 

 charm, and greet the eye with their tracery which 

 the summer verdure has hidden. Day by day, in 

 a mingled woodland landscape, the different trees 

 seem actually to stand forward or fall back before 

 the eye, as their shapes are caught suddenly by 

 the moment of flame, only to fade again into the 

 obscurity of naked boughs. 



Among the ranked elms in the lane or by the 

 field-side, where the splendour of the time is greatest, 

 it is the fewness and frailty of the elements making 

 so marvellous a picture of warmth and brilliance 

 that presently makes the deepest impression on the 

 mind. The trees are ablaze with a colour beside 

 which the brightness of summer was dim ; the sun 

 shines unclouded in a sky of exquisite blue, and the 

 air is full, in the heart of the soft noon hours, of 



