a Berkshire tfloofc. 25 



would complain. One learns to love it and to crave 

 it, and to take it as an intoxicant to the eyes. To- 

 day it was one shifting mass of hues and tints, 

 always with blue as the key-note, but running over 

 the whole gamut of shades. Nevertheless, the 

 whole of this landscape could never have been trans- 

 lated to canvas by means of indigo and its kindred 

 colours. For glorious greens were here, no longer, 

 indeed, the fresh emeralds of spring or early summer, 

 but mellowed into browner and yellower shades, the 

 riper draperies of autumnal days. Here, too, were 

 the pervasive yellows which flow with the sunshine 

 and ebb back from leaf of tree and grass of field, from 

 wild-flowers by the wayside and ripening grain upon 

 a score of hills. I do not know who is responsible 

 for the assertion I have heard recently that nature is 

 sparing of yellows, but it is certainly a grave misre- 

 presentation ; and it would be by no means strange if 

 a whole school of artists should presently arise to 

 tell us that there is yellow in nature, and do it with 

 such force and pertinacity as to make us believe that 

 Mother Earth is suffering from the jaundice. 



But now I had reached the mouth of the deep 

 glen whither I had bent my steps, just in time for the 

 finest hour of the day. The sinking sun was lost 

 already to the eastern slopes, and their deep chest- 

 nut forests were fast gathering the deeper shadows. 

 Eastward the beetling rocks and splintery woods still 

 held the sunshine. Three miles away, at the head 

 of the lovely vale, the graceful Dome of the Taconics 



