Winter Scenery 197 



spray. You listen for the roar of the breakers and 

 the sea-mew's cry ; but this ghost of a dead sea gives 

 you no answer back. Silently the wind blows on its 

 dark bosom, and it is rocked into storm without a 

 sound. On cliff and promontory the waves are broken 

 noiseless. It is hard to realise that under their com- 

 motion engines are puffing, horses are pacing and 

 hauling, and there sweats a force of moiling and toiling 

 men. 



It would almost seem as if in winter Nature lulled 

 her children to sleep, that for a season she may let 

 her fancy roam its fill. Easily as a housewife reorders 

 her ferniture she thrusts up an island through the sea, 

 she sends the waters rushing over a continent, she 

 adds you a city to the ocean floor, she makes a lake 

 give up her acres to the plough. Yet there are times 

 (and especially I think in winter) when, like a crone 

 that crouches, mumbling old memories, at the fire, 

 she recalls her prowess in the past. Perhaps it were 

 better for some if they had never revolted from her 

 mesmerism. Man is not wholly absolved from it. 

 Cold that stills the bird and casts the reptile into 

 trance cold that slays plant and insect, and banishes 

 butterfly and swallow is the nepenthe of life. It does 

 not make you loiter in the greenwood, or by the river, 

 as in the languid hours of summer ; but it predisposes 

 to reverie in tune with the dead or the dreaming world. 

 In summer, you love the fields for the promise of 

 harvest, and your heart fills with natural happiness ; 



