102 A SNOW-STORM. 



is taking a hand in the game. By mid-afternoon the 

 storm is coming in regular pulse-beats or in vertical 

 waves. The wind is not strong, but seems steady ; 

 the pines hum, yet there is a sort of rhythmic throb 

 in the meteor ; the air toward the wind looks ribbed 

 with steady-moving vertical waves of snow. The im- 

 pulses travel along like undulations in a vast sus- 

 pended white curtain, imparted by some invisible 

 hand there in the northeast. As the day declines 

 the storm waxes, the wind increases, the suow-fall 

 thickens, and 



" The housemates sit 

 Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed 

 In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 



A privacy which you feel outside as well as in. Out- 

 of-doors you seem in a vast tent of snow ; the distance 

 is shut out, near-by objects are hidden; there are white 

 curtains above you and white screens about you, and 

 you feel housed and secluded in storm. Your friend 

 leaves your door and he is wrapped away in white 

 obscurity, caught up in a cloud, and his footsteps are 

 obliterated. Travelers meet on the road and do not 

 see or hear each other till they are face to face. The 

 passing train, half a mile away, gives forth a mere 

 wraith of sound. Its whistle is deadened as in a 

 dense wood. 



Still the storm rose. At five o'clock I went forth 

 to face it in a two-mile walk. It was exhilarating 

 in the extreme. The snow was lighter than chaff. 

 It had been dried in the Arctic ovens to the last de- 



