AUTUMN. 
341 
through the woods and fields, you find many of the smaller shrubs 
very prettily colored, little annuals also, and the seedlings of the 
forest-trees. The tiny maples especially, not longer than your 
finger, with half a dozen little leaflets, are often as delicately 
colored as blossoms, pink, and red, and yellow. Some of the 
flowering plants, also, the sarsaparillas and May-stars, with their 
finely-cut leaves, are frequently of a soft, clear straw-oolor. One 
may make very handsome bunches of these bright leaves ; a 
branch of the golden chestnut, or aspen, or birch, a crimson twig 
from a young oak, another of scarlet maple, a long, plume-like 
leaf of the red sumach, with some of the lesser seedlings, and the 
prettiest of the wood-plants, make up a bouquet which almost 
rivals the dahlias in brilliancj'. 
Some persons occasionally complain that this period of the year, 
this brilliant change in the foliage, causes melancholy feelings, 
arousing sad and sorrowful ideas, like the flush on the hectic 
cheek. But surely its more natural meaning is of a very different 
import. Here is no sudden blight of youth and beauty, no sweet 
hopes of life are blasted, no generous aim at usefulness and ad- 
vancing virtue is cut short ; the year is drawing to its natural 
term, the seasons have run their usual coui-se, all their blessings 
have been enjoyed, all our precious things are cared for ; there is 
nothing of untimeliness, nothing of disappointment in these shorter 
days and lessening heats of autumn. As well may we mourn over 
the gorgeous coloring of the clouds, which collect to pay homage 
to the setting sun, because they proclaim the close of day ; as 
well may we lament the brilliancy of the evening star, and the 
silvery brightness of the crescent moon, just ascending into the 
