communications and bring deep anxiety or The Sons 



irremediable grief to an incalculable number. ?* "*? 



. North 



Yet, we must admit that even our severest wind 



winter is but a fierce reminder of times long 

 past for us, the times of the mail-coach, the 

 rude cart, the mountain-pony, that the worst 

 we ever have is tolerable beside the bleak 

 wretchedness of Pomerania, the frightful cold 

 of Esthonia, the death-in-life of Muscovy — to 

 say nothing of lands still more wild and remote. 

 One cannot say, here is snow at its loveliest, 

 here is ice in a unique beauty. Frozen lochs 

 by moonlight, frozen fens under the pale azure 

 of cloudless noons, dark winding rivers, lifeless 

 seemingly in the grip of frost, traversed by 

 starshine under overhanging boughs, lagoons 

 where the dark-blue or steel-blue ice mirrors 

 the drifting cloud or the flying skater, village- 

 ponds, canals, the water-ways of towns and 

 cities, in all, in each, the radiant miracle is 

 evident. Like moonshine, this beauty of ice 

 or snow may be omnipresent. If it inhabits 

 the wilderness, it is fulfilled also in the streets 

 of cities. AVho has not looked out on the 

 sordid thoroughfares of a town, and seen the 

 poor ignoble disarray of chimney-tops and slated 

 roofs and crude angles and ornamentations 

 take on a new and entrancing aspect, so that 

 even the untidy shops and tawdry dwellings 



7i 



