MINSTREL WEATHER 



legions rushing across the land with dag- 

 gers drawn, furious, bearing no malice, but 

 certainly no compassion, and overwhelm- 

 ing all creatures abroad : bewildered flocks, 

 birds half frozen on their twigs, cattle 

 unwisely left on shelterless ranges, and 

 people who lose the way long before 

 animals give up. Snow hardly seems made 

 of fairy stars and flowers when its full 

 terror sweeps Northern valleys or the in- 

 terminable solitudes of the plains. The 

 gale so armed for attack owns something 

 of the wicked intention which Conrad says 

 that sailors often perceive in a storm at 

 sea. The rider pursued by a blizzard may 

 feel, like the tossed mariner, that "these 

 elemental forces are coming at him with 

 a purpose, with an unbridled cruelty which 

 means to sweep the whole precious world 

 away by the simple and appalling act of 

 taking his life." We do not smile at the 

 pathetic fallacy when we are alone with 

 cold. The overtaken mountaineer under- 

 stands it means to get him. These things 

 happen in places where weather is not 

 obedient to wraps and furnaces, but where 

 it must be fought hand to hand and where 

 the pretty snow tangles its victim's feet 



[2] 



