those sharp capes, we shall find deep, smooth, and secure havens in the
ample bays. How different from the White-Oak leaf, with its rounded
headlands, on which no light-house need be placed! That is an England,
with its long civil history, that may be read. This is some still
unsettled New-found Island or Celebes. Shall we go and be rajahs there?

By the twenty-sixth of October the large Scarlet Oaks are in their
prime, when other Oaks are usually withered. They have been kindling
their fires for a week past, and now generally burst into a blaze. This
alone of _our_ indigenous deciduous trees (excepting the Dogwood, of
which I do not know half a dozen, and they are but large bushes) is now
in its glory. The two Aspens and the Sugar-Maple come nearest to it in
date, but they have lost the greater part of their leaves. Of
evergreens, only the Pitch-Pine is still commonly bright.

But it requires a particular alertness, if not devotion to these
phenomena, to appreciate the wide-spread, but late and unexpected glory
of the Scarlet Oaks. I do not speak here of the small trees and shrubs,
which are commonly observed, and which are now withered, but of the
large trees. Most go in and shut their doors, thinking that bleak and
colorless November has already come, when some of the most brilliant and
memorable colors are not yet lit.

This very perfect and vigorous one, about forty feet high, standing in
an open pasture, which was quite glossy green on the twelfth, is now,
the twenty-sixth, completely changed to bright dark scarlet,--every
leaf, between you and the sun, as if it had been dipped into a scarlet
dye. The whole tree is much like a heart in form, as well as color. Was
not this worth waiting for? Little did you think, ten days ago, that
that cold green tree would assume such color as this. Its leaves are