. The Inheritance 5 
signs of spring in the blossoming gooseberry 
in the cafions and the wild currant on the 
mountains. The season of quiescence—the 
sleeptime—is marked, not by a mantle of 
snow, but by a golden cloak of dried grasses 
over all the hills. It is not to‘be supposed, 
however, that in California one has no feel- 
ing of spring. The majority of wild flowers 
do not appear, in any abundance at least, 
till April, when they have begun to blossom 
with us in the East. But the significance 
of the season is less marked, takes accordingly 
less hold upon the imagination and is pro- 
ductive of less feeling. Undoubtedly in the 
East the contrast of winter and spring does 
much to heighten the effect—a stage trick by 
which we are readily duped and which some- 
how we are never weary of observing. 
Autumn, too, in the East, is a season in- 
comparable—a mood in Nature, an emotion 
in us, and nowhere else does one have pre- 
cisely the same feeling. On the Pacific slope 
and in the South-West, not only the difference 
in climatic conditions but the relative scarcity 
of deciduous trees conspire to deprive one of 
the full import of that mysterious mood of 
Nature, the haunting sadness so beautiful in 
that expression which we name autumn. In 
