AUTUMN. 99 



ing briers that wreathe the ground with their shining leaves of crimson 

 and deep bronze ! Could any art more daringly concentrate a rhapsody 

 of color than nature has here clone in bringing up that gorgeous spray 

 of scarlet sumach, whose fern-like pinnate leaves are so richly massed 

 against that background of dark evergreens ? And even in that single 

 branch see the wondrous gradation of color, from purest green to pur- 

 plish olive, and olive melting into crimson, and then to scarlet, and 

 through orange into yellow, and all sustaining in its midst the clustered 

 cone of berries of rich maroon ! Verily, it were almost an affront to sit 

 clown before such a shrine and attempt to match it in material pigment. 

 A passing sketch, perhaps, that shall serve to aid the memory in the 

 retirement of the studio, but a careful copy, never ! until we can have a 

 tenfold lease of life, and paint with sunbeams. But there is more still 

 in this tantalizing ideal, for a luxuriant wild grape-vine, that shuts in the 

 fence near by, sends toward us an adventurous branch that climbs the 

 upright rail, and festoons itself from fence to tree, and hangs its luminous 

 canopy over the crest of the yielding juniper. Even from where we stand 

 we can see the pendant clusters of tiny grapes clearly shadowed against 

 the translucent golden screen. Add to all this the charm of life and mo- 

 tion, with trembling leaves and branches bending in the breeze, with here 

 and there a flitting shadow playing across the half hidden rails, and where 

 can you find another such picture, its counterpart in beauty — where ? per- 

 haps its very neighbor, for all roadside pictures are " hung upon the line," 

 they are all by the same great Master, and it is often difficult to choose. 

 Here we have a contrast. A dappled rock has taken possession of 

 this little corner, or the corner has been built around it, if you choose — a 

 " gray " rock we would call it in common parlance, but it is a gray com- 

 posed of a checkered multitude of tints, colors which upon a rock, it 

 would seem, were hardly worth an appreciative glance ; but only let them 

 be exhibited upon a fold of Lyons silk or Jouvin kid glove, and dignify 

 them by the compliments of " ashes of roses," or " London smoke," and 

 how eagerly they are sought, how exquisite they become. I speak in 

 moderation when I say that I have often sat and counted as many as 

 thirty just such tints upon the surface of a small "gray" rock, each dis- 

 tinct, and all so refined and exquisite in shade. This rounded bowlder is 

 no exception ; and with its tufted spots of jetty moss, and outcroppings of 

 glistening quartz, its rounded, spreading blots of greenish lichens, and 

 mottled groundwork, it may well defy the craft of the most skilled palette. 



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