92 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



a half hour they have a marked slant toward the 

 north ; the wind 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 impulses travel along 

 like undulations in a vast suspended white curtain, 

 imparted by some invisible hand there in the north- 

 east. As the day declines the storm waxes, the 

 wind increases, the snow-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 exhila- 

 rating in the extreme. The snow was lighter than 

 chaff. It had been dried in the Arctic ovens to 



