_May 6, 5 P. M._--This is the hour for strange effects in light and
shade-enough to make a colorist go delirious--long spokes of molten
silver sent horizontally through the trees (now in their brightest
tenderest green,) each leaf and branch of endless foliage a lit-up
miracle, then lying all prone on the youthful-ripe, interminable grass,
and giving the blades not only aggregate but individual splendor, in
ways unknown to any other hour. I have particular spots where I get
these effects in their perfection. One broad splash lies on the
water, with many a rippling twinkle, offset by the rapidly deepening
black-green murky-transparent shadows behind, and at intervals all along
the banks. These, with great shafts of horizontal fire thrown among the
trees and along the grass as the sun lowers, give effects more and more
peculiar, more and more superb, unearthly, rich and dazzling.