NUMBER 60, OCTOBER 1862***


E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, David Kline, and Project Gutenberg
Distributed Proofreaders



THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

VOL. X.--OCTOBER, 1862.--NO. LX.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.







AUTUMNAL TINTS.

Europeans coming to America are surprised by the brilliancy of our
autumnal foliage. There is no account of such a phenomenon in English
poetry, because the trees acquire but few bright colors there. The most
that Thomson says on this subject in his "Autumn" is contained in the
lines,--

  "But see the fading many- woods,
  Shade deepening over shade, the country round
  Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
  Of every hue, from wan declining green to sooty dark":--

and in the line in which he speaks of

  "Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods."

The autumnal change of our woods has not made a deep impression on our
own literature yet. October has hardly tinged our poetry.

A great many, who have spent their lives in cities, and have never
chanced to come into the country at this season, have never seen this,
the flower, or rather the ripe fruit, of the year. I remember riding
with one such citizen, who, though a fortnight too late for the most
brilliant tints, was taken by surprise, and would not believe that there
had been any brighter. He had never heard of this phenomenon before. Not
only many in our towns have never witnessed it, but it is scarcely
remembered by the majority from year to year.

Most appear to confound changed leaves with withered ones, as if they
were to confound ripe apples with rotten ones. I think that the change
to some higher