"The hillsides about these lakes," remarked the Doctor, "must be
superlatively beautiful in the fall, when the forest puts on its
autumnal foliage. They present such a variety of trees, of so many
different kinds, and the hills and mountains are so admirably
arranged, that they must be gorgeous beyond description. However we
may prefer the green and _living_ beauty of spring, when everything is
so full of vitality, so buoyant and free, yet the autumn scenery is
the most magnificent of any in the year."
"Every season has its charms," said Spalding, "Even the winter, with
its cold, its dead and cheerless desolation, has its robe of chaste
and peerless white, which, as well as that of the spring-time, the
summer, and the autumn, has been the theme of song. I agree with you,
that in gorgeousness of beauty, there is no season so rich as the
autumn. Spring-time has its pleasant scenery, its genial days, its
deep green, its flowers, and its singing birds; and these are all the
more lovely because they follow so closely upon the cold storms, and
bleak winds, the chilling and blank desolation of winter. We love the
spring because of its freshness, its pervading vitality, its
recuperating influences. Everybody loves the spring-time; everybody
talks about the spring-time; poets sing of it; orators praise it;
'fair women and brave men' laud it; so that were spring-time human,
and possessing human instincts, and subject to human frailties, it
would have plenty of excuse, for becoming a very vain personage.
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