36 A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 



If the wind veer too much toward the east, you get the 

 heavy snow that gives a true Alpine slope to the boughs of 

 your evergreens, and traces a skeleton of your elins in white ; 

 but you must have plenty of north in your gale if you want 

 those driving nettles of frost that sting the cheeks to a 

 crimson manlier than that of fire. During the great storm 

 of two winters ago, the most robustious periwig-pated fellow 

 of lato years, I waded and floundered a couple of miles 

 through the whispering night, and brought home that 

 feeling of expansion we have after being in good company. 

 &quot; Great things doeth He which we cannot comprehend ; for 

 He saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth. &quot; 



There is admirable snow scenery in Judd s &quot; Margaret,&quot; 

 but some one has confiscated my copy of that admirable 

 book, and, perhaps, Homer s picture of a snow-storm is the 

 best yet in its large simplicity : 



&quot; And as in winter-time, when Jove his cold sharp javelins throws 



Amongst us mortals, and is moved to white the earth with snows, 



The winds asleep, he freely pours till highest prominents, 



Hill-tops, low meadows, and the fields that crown with most contents 



The toils of men, seaports and shores, are hid, and every place, 



But floods, that fair snow s tender flakes, as their own brood, embrace.&quot; 



Chapman, after all, though he makes very free with him, 

 comes nearer Homer than anybody else. There is nothing 

 in the original of that fair snow s tender flakes, but neither 

 Pope nor Cowper could get out of their heads the Psalmist s 

 tender phrase, &quot; He giveth his snow like wool,&quot; for which 

 also Homer affords no hint. Pope talks of &quot; dissolving 

 fleeces,&quot; and Cowper of a &quot;fleecy mantle.&quot; But David is 

 nobly simple, while Pope is simply nonsensical, and Cowper 

 pretty. If they must have prettiness, Martial would have 

 supplied them with it in his 



&quot;Densum tacitarum vellus aquarum,&quot; 



which is too pretty, though I fear it would have pleased 

 Dr. Donne. Eustathius of Thessalonica called snow 



woolly water, which a poor old French poet, Godeau, 

 has amplified into this : 



