EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 131 
I cannot easily forget the beauty of those 
terrestrial browns in the rain yesterday. The 
withered grass was not of that very pale, hoary 
brown that it is to-day, now that it is dry and 
lifeless; but being perfectly saturated and drip¬ 
ping with the rain, the whole hillside seemed to 
reflect a certain yellowish light so that you 
looked round for the sun in the midst of the 
storm. .... The cladonias crowning the knoll 
had richly expanded and erected themselves, 
though seen twenty rods off, and the knoll ap¬ 
peared swelling and bursting as with yeast. 
The various hues of brown were most beauti¬ 
fully blended, so that the earth appeared cov¬ 
ered with the softest and most harmoniously 
spotted and tinted fur coat.In short, in 
these early spring rains, the withered herbage 
thus saturated, and reflecting its brightest with¬ 
ered tint, seems in a certain degree to have re¬ 
vived, and sympathizes with the fresh greenish, 
or yellowish, or brownish lichens in its midst, 
which also seemed to have withered. It seemed 
to me, and I think it may be the truth, that 
the abundant moisture, bringing out the highest 
color on the brown surface of the earth, gen¬ 
erated a certain degree of light, which, when 
the rain held up a little, reminded you of the 
sun shining through a thick mist.The 
barrenest surfaces are perhaps the most inter- 
