THE HEART OF WINTER 283 



eyes as they sparkle in the glad sunshine. All 

 else is as nothing compared with these crystals. 

 Even the scarlet berry of the black alder, which 

 was beyond all things brilliant when the first snow 

 covered the land, fails now to arouse our interest. 

 Its colour is dulled by this new though perishable 

 beauty. As we walk through the woods the frozen 

 branches, shining wonderfully, creak and groan with 

 their icy burden. A pair of blue jays alight on an 

 oak tree, hoping to secure a meal of acorns. As 

 they pull and tear at the frozen branches, the ice 

 drops off with a noisy clatter that may be heard for 

 quite a distance. When a breeze, however faint, 

 passes through the woods, the sparkle increases a 

 hundredfold, and the whole place resounds with 

 the noise of the creaking ice. The snow-covered 

 ground is strewn with long scooped-out crystals 

 which shine like glass. It is wonderful : it is all 

 beautiful, but it is all the great silent death spectre, 

 and it tells him who knows the woods and fields 

 that it is a deadly beauty, which ends the lives of 

 birds in countless numbers, while it tickles our 

 senses, for we are big and strong and well housed. 

 Yet another phase of winter that has beauties of 

 its own, greater and even more fleeting than the 

 ice storm, is when the snow falls in large, wet 

 flakes and settles on all things. Then each shrub 

 becomes a snow bush and its branches are lost to 

 view. Every stump and stone is a tall, white 

 monument ; even on the tree trunks the snow 

 clings, as though anxious for all the world to be 

 white. Then is it worth our while to leave our 

 homes and at all cost to visit a forest of pines 



