"Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake."
"No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?"
"What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?"
"No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them."
"A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding.
"Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have."
"But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?"
"It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution."
"This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you."
Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'"