DECEMBER 



IT is one of the most cheerful recreations for a 

 leisure hour, to go out into the fields, under a mild, open 

 sky, to study the various appearances of Nature that 

 accompany the changes of the seasons, and to note those 

 phenomena which are peculiar to a climate of frost and 

 snow. The inhabitant of the tropics with his perpetual 

 summer, who sees no periodical changes except the alter- 

 nations of rain and drought, is deprived of a happy ad- 

 vantage possessed by the inhabitant of the north ; and, 

 with all the blessings of his voluptuous climate, is visited 

 by a smaller portion of the moral enjoyments of life. 

 In the minds of those who dwell in a northern latitude 

 there are sentiments which are probably never felt by the 

 indolent dweller in the land of the date and the palm ; 

 and however poetical to us may seem the imagery drawn 

 from the pictures we have read of those blissful regions, 

 ours is most truly the region of poetry, and of all those 

 sentiments which poetry aims to express. 



It will not be denied that in winter Nature has com- 

 paratively but few attractions ; that the woods and fields 

 offer but few temptations to ramble ; and that these are 

 such as appeal to the imagination rather than to the 

 senses, by furnishing matter for studious reflection and 

 calling up pleasing and poetic images. The man of 

 phlegmatic mind sees, in all these phenomena, nothing 

 but dreariness and desolation ; while to the studious or 

 the imaginative, every form of vegetation on the surface 

 of the earth becomes an instructive lesson or awakens a 



