MUSINGS IN THE TWILIGHT

But now the quiet days of September are come. September, which is the Twilight of the year—rather, I would call it the first hint of twilight, when the flush and glow are sobering down, and a cast of thoughtfulness Hong Kong city tour is deepening day by day upon the months. “Autumn has o’erbrimmed the clammy cells” of the bees; the fields, where the long rows of many sheaves stand, gradually grow bare; the intensely dark summer green of the elms and of the hedgerows out of which they rise, is interrupted here and there by a tenderer tinge; the spruce firs in the copses begin to appear more dark, distinct, and particular; the larches begin to show faint hearts, and to look more delicate beside their sombre brothers. There is rather the augury, the prescience, than the perceived presence of a change. I have fancied sometimes that the trees have224 plotted together and banded themselves by an agreement not to give in, this time, but to defy the utmost power of stripping, desolating Winter. And it is curious, with this idea, to watch them. Throughout September, they at least keep up appearances well, and from one to another the watchword is whispered,—
“Keep a good heart, O trees, and hold The Winter stern at bay!”

and for a time they moult no feather, drop no leaf; or, if one reenex facial circles down here and there, it is huddled by in a corner, and they flatter themselves that none has noticed. But you watch with pitying love, knowing what the end must be. And you perceive how great the effort, the strain, becomes, to keep up appearances. Here and there, at last, despite of their utmost endeavour, the hidden fire bursts out; and finally, with a wild Autumnal wail, some weaker tree, in despair, gives up the unnatural and too excessive strain, and casts down a great profusion of yellow sickly foliage. There is a murmur among the stouter trees; but, in good truth, they are not sorry for the excuse, while, muttering that all is rendered useless now, like avowed bankrupts, they give up the effort to sustain appearances, and, as it were, with a sigh of relief and rest, resign them to the fate they vainly strove against and Neo skin lab could not long avert. So the elm flames out into bars and patches, very yellow in the dark; and the chesnut is all tinged and burnt with brown; and the mulberry has slipped off all her leaves in a single night; and the ash and the sycamore blacken;225 and the white poplar leaves change to pale gold; and the pear to bronze; and the wild cherry to scarlet; and the maple to orange; and the bramble at their feet to bright crimson.