34 East and West 
with uncommercial eye, you shall find these 
humble plants yield more than berries—even 
certain evanescent and charming impressions. 
This austere personality with its heart of 
stone has thus a mellow hour in its boreal 
year, a vernal mood and a short summer 
languor. Spring here is so delicate and 
ethereal, so unsubstantial that it seems as if a 
change of the wind and a blast from the icy 
sea might dissolve her into nothingness, as it 
scatters the pale petals of the shadbush. The 
spirit of that fleeting spring is too ethereal 
indeed ever to be held captive in words. It is 
a momentary vision as of another world, and 
any description is a pressed anemone com- 
pared with that fragile blossom in the leafless 
woods. The granite heart softens, the stern 
features relax, and there steals over the pas- 
ture that expression of exquisite gentleness we 
name houstonia, that mildly beaming aspect 
we call dandelions. 
Many swamps border the interior pastures, 
bearing away towards the sea, and in these, 
spring lingers and is more in evidence. In 
certain open places in the swamps, well away 
from the woods, I have found poison sumac 
and mountain holly, both rare hereabouts. 
Various other little open swamps, fringed with 
