288 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



swing rapidly -into the open country, our faces up- 

 turned to feel the gentle sting of the flakes on cheek 

 and lip. We cannot see far into the dull, whitish-gray 

 sky; we are looking into opacity, a vast opacity which 

 overhangs the world and drops cool wool upon our 

 cheeks. The familiar landscape about us, too, is sud- 

 denly strange. The well-loved peaks have disappeared. 

 Perspective is curiously marked by the quality of sharp- 

 ness in upstanding objects. Close to us along the 

 road runs a wall and a row of nude sugar-maples, dark 

 and solid against the drift of the storm. Between the 

 trunks we can see, perhaps, a group of corn-shocks 

 standing in the field, and they are of fainter tone. 

 Beyond them the hedge-row of poplars and choke- 

 cherries which marks the farther boundary is fainter 

 still, almost as shadowy as the storm itself. Beyond 

 that there is nothing but the white mystery. Out 

 of the vast opacity above us the flakes fall without 

 ceasing, and our boots have already become silent on 

 the frozen road. In this great transformation of the 

 visible universe we are isolated beings carrying with us 

 as we move a narrow circle of familiar objects, yet 

 aware always of the immensity beyond. One is never 

 so intimate with Nature, so conscious of the pervasive- 

 ness of her phenomena, as in a snowstorm. In the 

 little circle of visible objects, reduced to their barest 

 essentials of mass and shade value, we are the exact cen- 

 tre always; and in some manner not easy to explain 



