FEBRUARY 29 



in my sleep, as what how when where ? But there was 

 dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at 

 my broad windows with serene and satisfied face. I awoke 

 to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow 

 lying deep on the earth, dotted with young pines, and the 

 very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed 

 to say ' Forward ! ' ' With what a true ear he listens to the 

 sounds of Nature. He notices the many varying tints, and 

 that passage from " The Pond in Winter " will suit to illus- 

 trate these present days : " Like the water, the Walden ice, 

 seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at the distance, is 

 beautifully blue, and you can easily tell it from the white 

 ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, 

 a quarter of a mile off. Sometimes one of those great cakes 

 slip from the iceman's sled into the village street, and lies 

 there for a week like a great emerald, an object of interest 

 to all passers. . . . Perhaps the blue colour of water and 

 ice is due to the light and air they contain, and the almost 

 transparent is the bluest. Ice is an interesting subject for 

 contemplation ! " For sights and sounds of winter we must 

 go to Thoreau for a faithful record and wonderful insight 

 into these days, a time to most of us when every sound seems 

 muffled and everything that is beautiful in Nature hidden. 



