CHAPTER XX 

 THIS SIDE THE SNOWS 



The maple wears a gayer scarf, 

 The field a scarlet gown, 

 Lest I should be old fashioned 

 I'll put a trinket on. 



— Emily Dickenson. 



HOWEVER we may feel about strong colour during 

 the spring and summer, there are few who do not 

 welcome it in the autumn garden. It is as if we 

 wished to fill our souls with warmth and gaiety against the 

 time when winter with its cold white silence shall lie upon 

 the land. Purple, scarlet, and gold are the colours of the 

 autumn garden and however bizarre and extravagant their 

 assemblage, the eye is made quiet, not only by means of 

 its harmony with the season, but through its accordance 

 with the moods of our own mind. 



Yellow and red is of all colour combinations to me the 

 most unpleasant. All summer I avoid it, snatching the 

 chance Coreopsis seedling from the neighbourhood of the 

 scarlet Lychnis, taking strenuous measures where California 

 Poppies and English Field Poppies attempt affiliation, but 

 now I am moved only to ardent admiration by the groups 

 of blazing Torch Lilies and Helenium, Scarlet Snapdragons, 



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