I 



DECEMBER 



HATEVER the calendar may say 

 fylJ about winter coming in on the first 

 nU ^^ ^^^^ month (or, with more scien- 

 tific accuracy, on the 21st), om feel- 

 ings do not cross the winter-hne until the first 

 snow-storm. Be it never so cold, the autumn 

 mood will linger on, until a few fairy flakes 

 silently but suddenly dispel the illusion, and 

 inaugurate the new regime, as the song spar- 

 row's earliest March melody magically opens 

 the gate of spring. 



Winter is like the old Norse poetry, ragged, 

 and jagged, and barbarously grand. There is a 

 certain fascination in the unique and austere 

 realities of this bleak and inhospitable season. 

 Until one stands in the depths of the woods in 

 mid-winter he does not appreciate how rare 

 and peculiarly impressive is the sense of abso- 

 lute silence — the soundless, deathly quiet in 

 earth and air, against which even his own light 

 breathing harshly grates, while his ear seems 



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