THE SOUL OF A TREE. 161 grass; the low, swaying boughs, with their deep, mysterious murmur, that seems instinct with human pleading; the tender plaint of infant leaves; the music of birds; the depth of sky; the balm, the bloom, the virginity, the peace, the consciousness of life, new yet illimitable, are all here, just as perfectly as they are yonder in God's solitude, untouched of man. If you need help to love a tree read the diary of Maurice de Guerin. No one else, not even Thoreau, (whose nature lacked in depth and breadth of tenderness perhaps in the deepest spiritual insight,) ever came so near or drew forth with such deep feeling the very soul of inanimate Nature. He felt the soul of the tree, heard it in the moaning of its voice as it stood with its roots bound in the earth and its arms outstretched with a never-ceasing sigh towards infinity. But why do I speak of him? He lived and died and never saw Washington. 11 CHAPTER XVIII. FAIR WASHINGTON—A RAMBLE IN EARLY SPRING. Washington Weather-Sky Scenery-Professor Tyndall Expresses an Opinion-A Picture of Beauty-"A City of Enchantment "- My Own Washington"-Prejudiced Views-Birds of Rock Creek-The Parsonage-A Scene of Tranquil Beauty-A Washington May-Charms of the Season-Mowers at Work-The Public Parks-Frolics of the Little Ones-Strawberry Festivals-" Flower Gathering." THE HE climate of Washington has a villainous reputation, and at certain times and seasons it deserves it. Yet it tantalizes us with days which prelude Paradise. Under their azure arch, through their beguiling air, with reluctant steps we enter winter-the oozy, clammy, coughing winter, which waits us just the other side of the gate of January. But they linger long-the preluding days. They seem reluctant to yield us to our impending foes-society and wet weather. These are the days of days, swathed in masses of lights and color unfathomable. It is one of the wonders of Washington too rarely noted-its sky-scenery. So few people take the trouble to look at the sky save to see if "it looks like rain." All that New York can afford to give to tired mortals is a scanty slice of light through which to let a glimpse of glory down upon its palaces and catacombs of humanity. But across these banding hills, this broad amphitheatre of space, mass and sweep on, in the A SCENE OF TRANQUIL BEAUTY. 163 empyrean, wave on wave of polarized light, with a delicacy of tint, a depth of hue, an immensity of volume, which no words can portray. This vast sea of color (in its deeps of orange, purple and gold, which now transfigure the twilight sky, till the Virginia hills look like open gates to the city of gold) Professor Tyndall, in one of his lectures on light, in this city, said that he had never seen approached on the other side of the Atlantic, save by the intense refractions of light on the Alpine glaciers. In the autumnal days, and in the advancing spring, through the blue spaces steals a tremulous, ever hovering purple, like opaline doves' necks' lustre, penetrating all the atmosphere like the purple haze above the hills of Rome, till the yellow walls of Arlington House, and the snowy masses of the Capitol seem actually to shimmer through waves of amethystine mist. Under such a light, some morning, spring suddenly spreads forth its whole panoply, with a vividness of green, a prodigality of foliage never seen in a more northern latitude. One wide wilderness of unbroken bloom sends up its fragrance through waves of purple yellow and azure light, and then, till the day when, without warning, summer suddenly transmutes all into molten brass, Washington in light and color, in bloom and fragrance, is a city of enchantment. Thus I have a Washington of my own, dear friends. I never find it till some March day, when in walking down the Capitol grounds I discover that the shining runlets. on either side of the Avenue have broken loose and are racing free through their sluices of stone, and that all the crocuses in the broad beds under the trees are pushing their little yellow noses out of the ground. To be sure, they almost always draw them back again to get them out of the snow which falls after; nevertheless on that day I find my Washington. Then it is, that just as the grey lenten veil has covered and extinguished the gay season of the "German," we come unaware upon another Washington, which I vainly essay to portray for you. My season is not fashionable. No portrayer of costumes is "liberally paid" by "the most enterprising of publishers" to describe the transcendent suit which decks this season of mine. My Washington has no chronicler. The scribes are all so busy abusing the Capitol, depicting its follies and its crimes, that, though they have eyes, they see not, and cars, they hear not, the sights and sounds of this other Washington-fair Washington, outlying, above and beyond all. If I could only paint for you the fathomless purples in which the hills enfold themselves, the wide glimmering rosy spaces, reaching on and on; or tell you of the nations of birds in the Rock Creek woods, which have made there a supreme haunt for naturalists; of its nations of flowers, which beckon and nod from the Rock Creek and Piney Branch roads; the anemones, the arbutus, the honeysuckle, the laurel, the violets, the innocents, covering wide acres with color and perfume; of the shy Rock Creek parsonage, built of brick brought from England more than a century ago, above whose trees the Capitol gleams, yet within whose porch you seem shut in peace away from this loud world, with the bees droning in the still warm air, and humming-birds drinking from the lilac cups; with the gentle Christian hearts which abide beneath its roof and minister beneath the shadow of its venerable church; if I could paint all these as they are, you would care for FLOWER GATHERING. 165 my Washington, but as I cannot, I fear that you never will. A Washington May is the June of the north, with a pomp of color, an exuberance of foliage, an allurement of atmosphere which a northern June has not. It is May now. All the ugly outlines and shabby old houses are softened and covered with beneficent foliage. Already the mowers are at work in the Capitol grounds and in the little public parks, and the sweetness of the slain grass pervades the atmosphere. The children are everywhere pretty things. Washington is full of them, tumbling amid the flowers and in the dirt. It is May, yet June, impatient, has reached across her sister, dropping her roses everywhere. Washington is one vast garden of roses. It is the hour of strawberry festivals and of FLOWER GATHERING. Miles away from the dusty town, Out in the beautiful June-time weather, Dim, in the distance, the city walls Rise, like the walls of a dreary prison; We watch their innocent eyelids ope, And below we hear the river flowing; On through the bees and butterflies, The grass |