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the cutting frosts of winter, and am grateful that I 
need not live to encounter them. I have enjoyed a 
long and verdant summer, and the sharp frosts that 
change my green tint into the bright hues that seem 
to dazzle your blue eyes, warn me that my end is 
approaching. I die content. I have breathed forth 
those qualities of air which are beneficial to the 
atmosphere ; I have inhaled those which would 
injure such delicate lungs as yours, and I have 
prepared the way for the ripening of the all impor¬ 
tant seed that is to perpetuate my race. 
“ And such is my destiny, to do good and give 
pleasure to man, for whose growth in love and wis¬ 
dom this sweet world is made. I sometimes hear 
him complain as he walks by these plashing waters, 
but I understand not his sorrows. When he tells 
them that the waves of his spirit are sometimes 
lashed into storms like theirs, they bid him not be 
