which all matter is most inclined to run, as foliage and fruit.  A hammock swung in a grove assumes the exact form of a canoe, broader or narrower, and higher or lower at the ends, as more or fewer persons are in it, and it rolls in the air with the motion of the body, like a canoe in the water.  Our art leaves its shavings and its dust about; her art exhibits itself even in the shavings and the dust which we make.  She has perfected herself by an eternity of practice.  The world is well kept; no rubbish accumulates; the morning air is clear even at this day, and no dust has settled on the grass.  Behold how the evening now steals over the fields, the shadows of the trees creeping farther and farther into the meadow, and erelong the stars will come to bathe in these retired waters.  Her undertakings are secure and never fail.  If I were awakened from a deep sleep, I should know which side of the meridian the sun might be by the aspect of nature, and by the chirp of the crickets, and yet no painter can paint this difference.  The landscape contains a thousand dials which indicate the natural divisions of time, the shadows of a thousand styles point to the hour.

     “Not only o’er the dial’s face,
       This silent phantom day by day,
     With slow, unseen, unceasing pace
       Steals moments, months, and years away;
     From hoary rock and aged tree,
       From proud Palmyra’s mouldering walls,
     From Teneriffe, towering o’er the sea,
       From every blade of grass it falls.”

It is almost the only game which the trees play at, this tit-for-tat, now this side in the sun, now that, the drama of the day.  In deep ravines under the eastern sides of cliffs, Night forwardly plants her foot even at noonday, and as Day retreats she steps into his trenches, skulking from tree to tree, from fence to fence, until at last she sits in his citadel and draws out her forces into the plain.  It may be that the forenoon is brighter than the afternoon, not only because of the greater transparency of its atmosphere, but because we naturally look most into the west, as forward into the day, and so in the forenoon see the sunny side of things, but in the afternoon the shadow of every tree.

The afternoon is now far advanced, and a fresh and leisurely wind is blowing over the river, making long reaches of bright ripples.  The river has done its stint, and appears not to flow, but lie at its length reflecting the light, and the haze over the woods is like the inaudible panting, or rather the gentle perspiration of resting nature, rising from a myriad of pores into the attenuated atmosphere.