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50 vanished, and the green woods shone out in the transparent atmosphere. The furze now became broken with patches of grass, and with occasional trees, and clumps of firs, whose sombre and wiry foliage had nothing in common with the cheerful aspect of their companions.

I cannot love evergreens—they are the misanthropes of nature. To them the spring brings no promise, the autumn no decline; they are cut off from the sweetest of all ties with their kind—sympathy. They have no hopes in common, but stand apart—very emblems for the fortunate and worldly man, whose harsh temper has been unsoftened by participating in general suffering, existing alone in his unshared and sullen prosperity. I will have no evergreens in my garden; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favourite tree shall droop together—no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay.

Far as the boundaries of the forest spread on either side, it yet lay just below the heath; a few more windings of the little path brought them directly into one of its glades. The first indication was a change of the perfumed air; the furze-blossom was merged in the delicious breath of the may, now in full bloom—the most aromatic of English flowers. The extreme stillness, relieved