Page:Life in the Open Air.djvu/388

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into this sunny, sheltered spot, where warm dewy airs, stealing up the river, bring summer higher than its wont. Liberal as is the beauty here, there is no cramming, — no outlandish forcing of all possible and many impossible objects into an artificial clustering. Here there is simplicity in complexity, — order in bewilderment. Nor is this spot a glare of metallic lustres, and all aflame with hot splendors, or incarnadined with crimson hues. Peaceful colors govern here as everywhere in this home of peace. The feathery blue cymes of a plant which the Indians name “yatcièl” recall the quiet blues of the sky. White spires mingle with the blues. Below, the convolvulus strews its rosy-purple disks over mantling vines. A scarlet passion-flower, the “caruba,” sparkles upon a garland of its own. Reedy grasses start up erect. And lowest, broad juicy leaves, gilded upon their edges with the all-pervading sunshine, grow full and succulent with moisture from the stream.

A perfect garden, — crowded with infinite delicacy and refinement of leaf and flower, — where there is no spot that is not blossom, or leafage, or dim recess where faded petals may lie, — where all seems so fair with these cloud-like creatures of white, these wreaths of azure bloom, and stars of scarlet, that this gentler beauty of earth almost wins us to forget the grander beauty we have known on the summits far away. And as we turn away from the glade, with a boon of sweet flowers in our