February — Snow. 5 5 



stillness of the night, and freeze and fasten on the tiniest 

 point they touch. Not once in a dozen winters does 

 this fairy building prosper to its completion ; but when 

 the time is come, and the fairies are permitted to do 

 their work without any disturbance from the great, 

 strong gods of the tempest, or the rays of far-darting 

 Apollo, then a strange enchantment descends upon the 

 forest, and a fragile beauty clothes it ; so fragile that 

 the alighting of a bird will shatter it, or the wind from 

 his rapid wings. 



The hoar-frost lasted for one day in this perfect 

 beauty, as abundant as a considerable snowfall, but 

 incomparably more exquisite, being indeed to the opac- 

 ity of common snow what the lace of a princess is to 

 the linen of ordinary life. During this one day of 

 strange tranquillity I walked mile after mile in the 

 narrow woodland roads, deeply enjoying the solemnity 

 of their silence, and watching without sorrow the beau- 

 tiful death of Nature. The next night came a storm of 

 wind and rain that washed out all fairy-land ruthlessly, 

 and after the rain came snow, and when the snow was 

 deep in the meadows down in the valley the sky cleared 

 and the stars shone as night deepened with that pecul- 

 iar scintillating splendor which belongs to a frosty night, 

 and a young bright moon cast a broad shadow from the 

 wood's edge down a slope of snow untrodden by man 

 or beast. 



Alexis and I were watching this scene from a terrace 

 in the garden, when he seized my arm suddenly, and 

 pointed in silence to the broad shadow above mentioned, 



