The Winter Niijht. 2V 



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and get no exercise, we let them loose this afternoon, 

 and are going to try if we can leave them so. Of course 

 they at once began to fight, and some poor creatures 

 limped away from the battle-field scratched and torn. 

 But otherwise great joy prevailed ; they leaped, and ran, 

 and rolled themselves in the snow. Brilliant aurora in 

 the evening. 



" Saturday, October /th. Still cold, with the same 

 northerly wind we have had all these last days. I am 

 afraid we are drifting far south now. A few days ago 

 we were, according to the observations, in 78 47' north 

 latitude. That was 16' south in less than a week. This is 

 too much ; but we must make it up again : we must get 

 north. It means going away from home now, but soon 

 it will mean going nearer home. What depth of beauty, 

 with an undercurrent of endless sadness, there is in these 

 dreamily sflowino" evenings ! The vanished sun has left 



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its track of melancholy flame. Nature's music, which 

 fills all space, is instinct with sorrow that all this beauty 

 should be spread out day after day, week after week, 

 year after year, over a dead world. Why ? Sunsets are 

 always sad, at home too. This thought makes the sight 

 seem doubly precious here and doubly sad. There is 

 red burning- blood in the west ao-ainst the cold snow 



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and to think that this is the sea, stiffened in chains, in 

 death, and that the sun will soon leave us, and we shall 

 be in the dark, alone ! ' And the earth was without 

 form, and void ' ; is this the sea that is to come ? 



