CHAPTER XXIII 



WINTER SKIES 



THE December woods have their cordial 

 aspects if one is not over-coddled in his 

 sensations. We impute to them a melan 

 choly of which they are entirely innocent, but it 

 is our immemorial habit to hang our emotions 

 upon all boughs, and then, seeing our own human 

 desires flaunting like the washerwoman s linen, to 

 call, as Shakspere did, the boughs &quot; melancholy.&quot; 

 We carry the pensive depths of winter woods 

 in our memories they are within us, and so long 

 as we do not utterly confuse the intent of Nature 

 with the ineradicable sense of evanescence in our 

 selves, the melancholy may play its part whole 

 somely enough. 



I can understand now that the trees, more 

 columnar and sedate without their garnishment 

 of chlorophyl, are like cenotaphs of the summer, 

 and do, indeed, seem to the bereaved sense like 

 &quot; bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds 



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