The abundance of light had something strangely reassuring about it; life, sap, heat, and exhalations overflowed, and the greatness of the source could be felt beneath creation. In all these blasts penetrated with love, in this movement of reflections and gleams, in this prodigious expenditure of beams, and in this indefinite outpouring of fluid gold, the prodigality of the inexhaustible could be felt; and behind this splendor, as behind a curtain of flames, glimpses of God, that millionnaire of the stars, could be caught. Thanks to the sand, there was not a speck of mud; and, thanks to the rain, there was not a grain of dust The bouquets had just performed their ablutions, and all the velvets, all the satins, all the varnish, and all the gold which issue from the earth in the shape of flowers, were irreproachable. This magnificence was clean, and the grand silence of happy nature filled the garden,--a heavenly silence, compatible with a thousand strains of music, the fondling tones from the nests, the buzzing of the swarms, and the palpitations of the wind. All the harmony of the season was blended into a graceful whole, the entrances and exits of spring took place in the desired order, the lilacs were finishing, and the jessamine beginning, a few flowers were behindhand, a few insects before their time, and the vanguard of the red butterflies of June fraternized with the rearguard of the white butterflies of May. The plane-trees were putting on a fresh skin, and the breeze formed undulations in the magnificent enormity of the chest-nut-trees. It was splendid. A veteran from the adjoining barracks who was looking through the railings said, "Spring presents arms in full dress."