October 27, 1864. (_Promenade de la Treille_).--The air this morning was
so perfectly clear and lucid that one might have distinguished a figure
on the Vouache. [Footnote: The Vouache is the hill which bounds the
horizon of Geneva to the south-west.] This level and brilliant sun had
set fire to the whole range of autumn colors; amber, saffron, gold,
sulphur, yellow ochre, orange, red, copper-color, aquamarine, amaranth,
shone resplendent on the leaves which were still hanging from the boughs
or had already fallen beneath the trees. It was delicious. The martial
step of our two battalions going out to their drilling-ground, the
sparkle of the guns, the song of the bugles, the sharp distinctness of
the house outlines, still moist with the morning dew, the transparent
coolness of all the shadows--every detail in the scene was instinct with
a keen and wholesome gayety.
There are two forms of autumn: there is the misty and dreamy autumn,
there is the vivid and brilliant autumn: almost the difference between
the two sexes. The very word autumn is both masculine and feminine. Has
not every season, in some fashion, its two sexes? Has it not its minor
and its major key, its two sides of light and shadow, gentleness and
force? Perhaps. All that is perfect is double; each face has two
profiles, each coin two sides.
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