NEWS OF SPRING 



apples, pompons, rosettes, shells, vapours, breaths, stalactites of 

 ice and falling snow, a throbbing hail of sparks, wings, chips, 

 fluffy, pulpy, fleshy things, wattles, bristles, funeral piles and 

 sky-rockets, bursts of light, a stream of fire and sulphur. . . . 



3 



Now that the shapes have capitulated comes the question 

 of conquering the region of the proscribed colours, of the 

 reserved shades, which Autumn, it would seem, denies to the 

 flowers that represent it. Lavishly it bestows on them all the 

 wealth of the twilight and the night, all the riches of the 

 vintage-time: it gives them all the mud-brown work of the rain 

 in the woods, all the silvery fashionings of the mist in the 

 plains, of the frost and snow in the gardens. It permits them, 

 above all, to draw at will upon the inexhaustible treasures of 

 the dead leaves and the expiring forest. It allows them to 

 deck themselves with the golden sequins, the bronze medals, 

 the silver buckles, the copper spangles, the fairy feathers, the 

 powdered amber, the burnt topazes, the neglected pearls, the 

 smoked amethysts, the calcined garnets, all the dead but still 

 resplendent jewellery which the north wind heaps up in the 

 hollow of ravines and ruts ; but it insists that they shall remain 



[164] 



