A WINTER WALK. 57 



of January, if it warms us less, cheers us more than the 

 sunshine of June, through the force of contrast contrast with 

 the gloom which has gone before, and is sure to come after 

 contrast with the dark wintry objects on which it shines ; and 

 perhaps, more than all, contrast with that peculiar stillness 

 which usually attends fair weather at this season, a stillness 

 perceptible both to eye and ear, and produced, partly by the 

 quiet of the tuneful groves, but quite as much by the absence 

 of those Insect myriads which animate the summer beam. This 

 very stillness is exciting, because (our ideas of light and life being 

 always associate) it seems, on a bright day, strange and almost 

 unnatural. Through a silent sunshine of this description, we 

 repaired yesterday morning to an oak wood, which is one of 

 our favourite places of resort and research. This wood, till 

 lately, was a sylvan assemblage of most ancient standing, but 

 is now composed almost wholly of comparative upstarts, 

 exulting in their vigorous life over the truncated stumps below 

 them. But even these, the monuments of fallen greatness, 

 substantial in decay, stood not a whit more motionless than 

 the slenderest sapling of the living generation, not a breath 

 being abroad to wave their tops or to stir the brown leaves 

 which had held on, laughing at autumn gales and wintry 

 blasts. A sprinkle of snow, crisp and glittering, slightly 

 veiled the wood tracks, and as we trod them " we heard not a 

 sound," but the brittle gems breaking on the spangled path- 

 way. This was exactly the stillness we have just been noting 



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