OCTOBER. 245 



transformation. Sometimes in the space of one night, 

 a whole tree will suddenly, as if by enchantment, put 

 off its green robe and appear in a full garb of crimson. 

 The leaves are suddenly metamorphosed into flowers, 

 as if the dew-drops brought with them the hues of the 

 beautiful clouds from which they fell. But while some 

 trees are thoroughly changed in their appearance, others 

 are only impurpled with a delicate shade of red, or 

 slightly tinged with orange or russet ; for nature, while 

 decorating some in one uniform color, scatters over the 

 remainder a gentle sprinkling of every hue. 



It is my delight, during all this month, to ramble in 

 the field and by the wood side, to take note of these 

 changes, as they happen by day. Every morning as it 

 arrives, witnesses a new aspect in the face of nature, 

 like each passing moment that attends the brightening 

 and fading of the evening sky. The landscape we 

 visited but yesterday, seems to-day like a different pros- 

 pect, save in the arrangement of the grounds. Beauty 

 has suddenly awoke upon the face of a dull and homely 

 wood, and variety has sprung up in the midst of tire- 

 some uniformity. There are patches of brightly tinted 

 shrubbery, that seem to have risen, during the night, 

 from the bed of the earth, where yesterday there was 

 but a dull uniform green ; and when surrounded by the 

 unfaded grasses, they resemble little flower plats, im- 

 bosomed in verdure. As the month advances, one 

 tree after another partakes of this beautiful transforma- 

 tion. No two trees exhibit the same combinations of 

 tints; but all the varieties of red, yellow, and purple 

 are resplendent from the different species. It seems 

 as if the departed flowers of summer had revisited 

 the earth, and were wreathing their congregated gar- 



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