56 A TOUa ROUND MT GAEDEN. 



change, however small or confined it may please me to choose 

 it to be. There is not an actor that appears before his turn ; 

 they seem every one to issue from the earth, or. their en- 

 velope, at a signal, or as an answer given to the signal, — Sit 

 down and travel. 



The sharp wind of the winter has swept away the leaves ; 

 the despoiled trunks and branches of the trees present various 

 colours : the wood of the cornel-tree is of a brilliant- red ; that 

 of the golden ash is yellow; the branches of the Spanish 

 broom are of emerald-green ; the trunk of the birch is white; 

 the branches which have shot from the linden-tree during 

 the summer are of violet-red; there is a raspberry, which 

 the gardeners call blue-wood, and which is of a splendid 

 violet; some maples have their branches green; the American 

 walnut is black. But the mosses vegetate and flourish, and 

 at the foot of a tree, the Christmas rose, the black hellebore, 

 opens its flowers, like simple roses, white or pale rose-colour; 

 the sweet-smelling coltsfoot, the winter heliotrope, displays 

 from the bosom of its large round foliage, its grey and rose- 

 coloured tufts which shed around a sweet vanilla odour. 



But December is gone ; these two actors disappear at the 

 first signal given by the frost; here is January, covering the 

 earth with snow; the frost splits the trees; it is a new scene : 

 the redbreast comes nearer to our dwelling; the oalycanthus 

 of Japan opens, upon such of its naked branches as are seen 

 through the snow, little pale flowers, yellow and violet, which 

 exhale a sweet perfume, recalling at once the odour of the 

 jasmine and that of the hyacinth. This is a long monologue; 

 it is the only flower that blows in the open air during severe 

 cold: the flowers soon wither and fall — its grey branches 

 remain naked — ^the leaves will not show themselves before 

 spring. 



What is going to appear with the month of February? 

 The nut-trees suspend their long yellow catkins, and expand 

 their little carmine tips ; the daphne-laurel, of which I spoke 

 to you but now, is soon followed by another daphne, which 

 is called gentle wood (bois gentil), and which bears flowers 

 like its own, but which are lilac, rose-coloured, or white ; the 

 * hepatica opens its little double, rose-coloured, or deep blue 

 roses, this is a sort of first act, an exposition in which thft 



