and sad in the same breath.

Did I say that there was no feeling like it? Ah, but there is a half-
acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the perfected
vigor of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his flowers,
and that the next work of his never-idle fingers must be to steal them
one by one away.

I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket be not as early a
token of autumn's approach as any other,--that song which may be
called an audible stillness; for though very loud and heard afar, yet
the mind does not take note of it as a sound, so completely is its
individual existence merged among the accompanying characteristics of
the season. Alas for the pleasant summertime! In August the grass is
still verdant on the hills and in the valleys; the foliage of the
trees is as dense as ever and as green; the flowers gleam forth in
richer abundance along the margin of the river and by the stone walls
and deep among the woods; the days, too, are as fervid now as they
were a month ago; and yet in every breath of wind and in every beam of
sunshine we hear the whispered farewell and behold the parting smile
of a dear friend. There is a coolness amid all the heat, a mildness
in the blazing noon. Not a breeze can stir but it thrills us with the
breath of autumn. A pensive glory is seen in the far, golden gleams,
among the shadows of the trees. The flowers--even the brightest of
them, and they are the most gorgeous of the year--have this gentle
sadness wedded to their pomp, and typify the character of the
delicious time each within itself. The brilliant cardinal-flower has
never seemed gay to me.

Still later in the season Nature's tenderness waxes stronger. It is