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OCTOBER. 325 



groundwork of drifted snow. By this vapor, nearly mo- 

 tionless at sunrise, we may trace the winding course of 

 the small rivers far along through the distant prospect. 

 But the sun quickly dissipates this fleecy cloud. As the 

 winds float it slowly and gracefully over the plains, it 

 melts into transparency ; and ere the sun has gained ten 

 degrees in his orbit, the last feathery fragment has van- 

 ished and left him in the clear blue firmament without 

 one shadow to tarnish his glory. 



October is the most brilliant of the months, unsurpassed 

 in the clearness of its skies and in the wonderful variety 

 of tints that are sprinkled over all vegetation. He who 

 has an eye for beautiful colors must ever admire the scen- 

 ery of this last month of foliage and flowers. As Nature 

 loses the delicacy of her charms, she is more lavish of the 

 gaudy decorations with which she embroiders her apparel. 

 While she appears before us in her living attire, from 

 spring to autumn she is constantly changing her vesture 

 with each passing month. The flowers that spangle the 

 green turf or wreathe themselves upon the trees and 

 vines, and the herbage with all its various shades of ver- 

 dure, constitute, with their successive changes, her spring 

 and summer adornment ; but ere the fall of the leaf she 

 makes herself garlands of the ripened foliage, and crowns 

 the brows of her mountains and the bosoms of her groves 

 with the. most beautiful array. 



Though the present is a melancholy time of the year, 

 we are preserved from cheerless reflections by the bright- 

 ness of the sunshine and the interminable beauty of the 

 landscape. The sky in clear weather is of the deepest 

 blue ; and the ocean and the lakes, slightly ruffled by the 

 October winds, which are seldom tranquil, have a pecu- 

 liar depth of coloring, unwitnessed when their surface is 

 calm. Diverted by the unusual charms of Nature, while 

 we look with a mournful heart upon the graves of the 



