A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 35 



They are all in a tale. It is always the tristis Hiems of 

 Virgil. Oatch one of them having a kind word for old 

 Barbe Fleurie, unless he whines through some cranny, like 

 a beggar, to heighten their enjoyment while they toast their 

 slippered toes. I grant there is a keen relish of contrast 

 about the bickering flame as it gives an emphasis beyond 

 Gherardo della Notte to loved faces, or kindles the gloomy 

 gold of volumes scarce less friendly, especially when a 

 tempest is blundering round the house. Wordsworth has a 

 fine touch that brings home to us the comfortable contrast 

 of without and within, during a storm at night, and the 

 passage is highly characteristic of a poet whose inspiration 

 always has an undertone of bourgeois : 



&quot; How touching, when, at midnight, sweep 

 Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark, 

 To hear, and sink again to sleep !&quot; 



J. H., one of those choice poets who will not tarnish their 

 bright fancies by publication, always insists on a snow-storm 

 as essential to the true atmosphere of whist. Mrs. Battles, 

 in her famous rule for the game, implies winter, and would 

 doubtless have added tempest, if it could be had for the 

 asking. For a good solid read also, into the small hours, 

 there is nothing like that sense of safety against having 

 your evening laid waste, which Euroclydon brings, as he 

 bellows down the chimney, making your fire gasp, or rustles 

 snow flakes against the pane with a sound more soothing 

 than silence. Emerson, as he is apt to do, not only hit the 

 nail on the head, but drove it home, in that last phrase of 

 the &quot; tumultuous privacy.&quot; 



But I would exchange this, and give something to boot, 

 for the privilege of walking out into the vast blur of a 

 north-north-east snow-storm, and getting a strong draught 

 on the furnace within, by drawing the first furrows through 

 its sandy drifts. I love those 



&quot; Noontide twilights which snow makes 

 With tempest of the blinding flakes.&quot; 



