It adds greatly to the beauty of such a
swamp at this season, that, even though there may be no other trees
interspersed, it is not seen as a simple mass of color, but, different
trees being of different colors and hues, the outline of each crescent
tree-top is distinct, and where one laps on to another. Yet a painter
would hardly venture to make them thus distinct a quarter of a mile off.
As I go across a meadow directly toward a low rising ground this bright
afternoon, I see, some fifty rods off toward the sun, the top of a Maple
swamp just appearing over the sheeny russet edge of the hill, a stripe
apparently twenty rods long by ten feet deep, of the most intensely
brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits,
or any tints ever painted. As I advance, lowering the edge of the hill
which makes the firm foreground or lower frame of the picture, the depth
of the brilliant grove revealed steadily increases, suggesting that the
whole of the inclosed valley is filled with such color. One wonders that
the tithing-men and fathers of the town are not out to see what the
trees mean by their high colors and exuberance of spirits, fearing that
some mischief is brewing. I do not see what the Puritans did at this
season, when the Maples blaze out in scarlet.
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