A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



and without volition, paradoxical as that may 

 sound. 



When the spiteful and spitting snow gusts came, 

 and an incisive northeast chilliness presaged Christ 

 mas glows, I sat before my log fire wondering 

 again if the scales had fallen from my eyes. In 

 the elf light of my wood blaze, with a great black 

 tea-kettle on our crane, singing and tinkling its 

 lid, I could almost fancy that my old grandmother 

 was somewhere near, smoothing down her apron 

 and saying, &quot; Yes, I told you the scales would fall 

 from your eyes some day.&quot; 



Unquestionably I was looking at things and 

 not only things, but thoughts with a simpler 

 vision. Most of the disturbing elements of my 

 life had been left behind. The emotions, as dis 

 tinct from the feelings, were less insurgent, and 

 did not ruffle my judgment so obstreperously. I 

 looked out at the first snow with a reflective equa 

 nimity. It was, in a sense, a hysterical preludium 

 of winter, as if the prentice season were flirting 

 with us, giving us fierce dashes of flakes that 

 drove with a blinding bravado, and then vanished 

 weakly. Some kind of over-effort to snow, and 

 not quite able to accomplish it, very characteristic, 

 Gabe said, of the modern winters, that lack the 

 gravity and steady, business-like effectiveness of 

 the old-fashioned whelming snow-storm. Gabe 

 evidently thought that the elements, like human 

 society, had grown strenuous and discursive, and 

 lacked prosaic continuity of purpose. &quot; There 

 will be a great hue and cry of snow,&quot; said Gabe, 



270 



