THE EFFECT OF TREES 



frosty sky, some written thing comes quickly into the 

 brain almost as if the printed letters stood out clear. 

 There is one scene of winter and trees comes often to me 

 very full and clear. It is from the beginning of " Martin 

 Chuzzlewit," and heralds the entrance in the story of the 

 immortal Mr. Pecksniff. 



" The fallen leaves, with which the ground was strewn, 

 gave forth a pleasant fragrance, and, subduing all 

 harsh sounds of distant feet and wheels, created a 

 repose in gentle unison with the light scattering of 

 seed hither and thither by the distant husbandman, 

 and with the noiseless passage of the plough as it turned 

 up the rich brown earth and wrought a graceful pattern 

 in the stubbled fields. On the motionless branches of 

 some trees autumn berries hung like clusters of coral 

 beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits 

 were jewels ; others, stripped of all their garniture, 

 stood, each the centre of its little heap of bright red 

 leaves, watching their slow decay ; others again still 

 wearing theirs, had them all crunched and crackled up, 

 as though they had been burnt. About the stems of 

 some were piled, in ruddy mounds, the apples they 

 had borne that year ; while others (hardy evergreens 

 this class) showed somewhat stern and gloomy in 

 their vigour, as charged by nature with the admonition 

 that it is not to her more sensitive and joyous favourites 

 she grants the longest term of life. Still athwart their 

 darker boughs the sunbeams struck out paths of deeper 

 gold ; and the red light, mantling in among their 

 swarthy branches, used them as foils to set its brightness 

 off, and aid the lustre of the dying day. 



" A moment, and its glory was no more. The sun 

 went down beneath the long dark lines of hill and cloud 

 which piled up in the west an airy city, wall heaped on 

 wall, and battlement on battlement ; the light was 



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