THE YEAR’S HIGH NOON 
89 
sweet-pea, and this in spite of my reiterated and truth¬ 
ful assurance that it is she and not I that confers the 
benefit, inasmuch as her timely harvesting puts back 
the period of seed-time, and prolongs the flowery season 
for yet a little while. 
One can hardly accuse this present year of a too 
great extravagance of sunshine; indeed, I have heard 
the suggestion of niggardliness raised more than once. 
Yet, in spite of all, even in face of the pale green 
cheeks of my unsunned tomatoes, that refuse so stoutly 
to incarnadine, I am well pleased with the pageant it 
has shown me. Never, through the best and most 
miraculous years that I have witnessed has the subtle 
and intimate charm of colour been so fully revealed 
to me. 
’Tis the grey light shows the colour; I know it well 
now. The splendid alembic of the sunshine fuses, 
glorifies; confers a glory, as a sovereign may bestow 
prizes of rank and state. But the pale radiance of 
a pearl-grey day differentiates and discloses with the 
selective power of the true artist. 
It is realism, an you will; but here at least, is the 
dream fulfilled of one who, maybe, was no realist, and 
yet all the better poet in that he discerned finely and 
told finely of that which he saw. “ Beauty is truth, 
truth beauty,” is the very device for a fair grey day. 
