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A September sunset : ' The sun had now drawn nearly to the close of his journey , and was shooting his lovely beams between the trunks of the trees . The party , therefore , began to bend their steps homeward , and upon reaching the outskirts of the wood , they all at once expressed their admiration and delight at the grandeur and beauty of the heavens . It was one of those
gorgeous sunsets , for which our climate is so remarkable during the first autumnal months . They saw above and around them nothing but the richest and most vivid colours . In the centre was the golden glory of the luminary ; next to this , and mixed in streaks with the gold , were dashes of pale green ; at a greater distance , and circling the sun so as to form , as it were , the mouth of a vast cavern , were purple clouds deeply
crimsoned towards their edges ; and at the extreme edge , nearest to the sun , they were of a bright copper-gold . Still further removed , the clouds were mottled like tortoise-shell ; their sides next the sun being rose-pink , and the opposite ones of a grave indigo tint . Above was one superb expanse of gold , green , purple , and crimson ; and below , the rays of the orb were giving the surrounding trees gold for gold ; for there were , in succession , the plane , the hazel , the maple , the ash , and the hornbeam , all of a fine bright yellow , and made brighter . The dull brown of the sycamore was enlivened ; the orange leaf of the elm , the tawny yellow oF the hawthorn , and fine red of the wild cherry , all showed to advantage . Besides these pleasant delights to the eye , they
were regaled by the agreeable smell of the wood , and of the dried leaves which they crushed under foot in their passage . They also , from time to time , slightly caught the odour of burning weeds , brought in a long unbroken train by the evening breeze from some neighbouring cornfields ; for the harvest was all gathered in , even to the beans , which are the last to ripen . '—pp . 155 , 156 .
While such descriptions as these spring up every here and there , like flowers in all their natural beauty , ' when unadorned , adorned the most / there are more solid productions , the fruits , borne in their season , and inviting us to ' learn and inwardly digest . ' In glancing at some of the more prominent of these moralizings , we have unfortunately to quarrel with the first we come to ; the more so as the mistake ( in our view ) is one which pervades the work , as indeed it pervades society . Little Adam Stock serves his moral apprenticeship , his education that is , under a system of artificial rewards and punishments ; not the least artificial means consisting in his being told that he is the object of anger and of love in proportion to his obedience or disobedience . This last is the worst part of the story . When his
father , for a reward , allowed him to sit up to supper , and have poached eggs and salad , and a good draught of home-brewed bottled ale , his father taught a very foolish lesson ; but the following passage inculcates one which deserves a stronger censure : 1 Do you not feel a great deal more happy now you know that you have been industrious and useful , than when you used to crawl about , and endeavour to escape doing any thing ? " u Yes , papa , " Baid Adam ,
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Adam the Gardener . 147
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 147, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/63/
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