154 HOW NATURE STUDY SHOULD BE TAUGHT 



wide-awake old boy, and his bluff sincerity and 

 hearty ways are more congenial to my mood, and 

 more wholesome forme than any charms of which 

 his rivals are capable. . . . However, when 

 you do get a crust that will bear, and know any 

 brooklet that runs down a hillside, be sure to go 

 and take a look at him, especially if your crust is 

 due, as it commonly is, to a cold snap following 

 eagerly on a thaw. You will never find him so 

 cheerful. As he shrank away after the last thaw, 

 he built for himself the most exquisite caverns of 

 ice to run through, if not ' measureless to man ' 

 like those of Alpha, the sacred river, yet perhaps 

 more pleasing for their narrowness than those for 

 their grandeur. What a cunning silversmith is 

 Frost ! The rarest workmanship of Delhi or 

 Genoa copies him but clumsily as if the fingers 

 of all other artists were thumbs. Fernwork and 

 lacework and filagree in endless variety, and under 

 it all the water tinkles like a distant guitar, or 

 drums like a tambourine, or gurgles like the tokay 

 of an anchorite's dream. Beyond doubt there is 

 a fairy procession marching along those frail 

 arcades and translucent corridors." 



11 Their oaten pipes blow wondrous shrill, 

 The hemlock small blow clear." 



