JANUARY 17 



then is there a garden so spiritual that our eyes 

 are unworthy to behold it, and our souls stand 

 abashed before such a revelation of holiness. 

 There is one supreme hour in the snow 

 world, and that is when twilight settles down, 

 chill, still. Trees are etherealised, distances 

 vanish. One by* one the colours die out of the 

 west : one by one in the far, cold sky the stars 

 come out, each attentive to " God's calling the 

 bede-roll of the little stars, and each answering, 

 ' Here am I ! ' What majesty, what solem- 

 nity, what awful beauty, in these glories of 

 the most ancient of all gardens ! As they 

 deepen and brighten and grow, and the cold 

 strengthens, perhaps the air will be fanned for 

 a moment by the wide wing of a snowy owl ; 

 perhaps the white burden of snow will shiver 

 down from some evergreen bough on which a 

 restless jay has found shelter ; perhaps there 

 will be a fairy tinkling of 



" Icicles 

 Quietly shining to the quiet moon." 



So many things may happen in a January 

 garden ! 



