WINTER HARMONIES. 



Nothing in Nature languishes or dies. 

 Perennial energy radiates through all 

 things, and an inexhaustible potentiality 

 lies stored in every clod. We think of 

 winter as a season of arrested energies, a 

 benumbed and ice-clamped, bare and 

 wind-swept time. And yet there is no 

 time of more intense vitality, suppressed 

 it may be, but intense for all that. 



We go into the woods as into a shelter, 

 roofed and carpeted from cold. A snug 

 security abides here, and we find a care- 

 ful housing and husbanding of life which 

 reassures and warms the heart. Here is 

 no death-like trance, no trance-like apa- 

 thy, but the breathing warmth and still- 

 ness of a normal sleep. How soundly 

 they are sleeping, all those thousand 

 little creatures lying close for warmth 

 with their voluminous wide covers all so 

 carefully spread over, with thick earthy 

 blanketings of leaves and velvet mosses ! 



The very colors, too, are warm and 

 comforting, colors that wear well upon 

 the eye, and grow unobtrusively into 

 the consciousness, with a sweet, homely 

 suggestion of good service ; colors that 

 take on a strong dramatic feeling in 

 the bleak gloaming or the yellow dawn, 

 or in the low, slant light of a waning 

 wintry afternoon, thrilling in upon us 

 their subdued, mysterious harmonies. 



Warm, dappled browns and grays with 

 here and there a roll of velvet green. 

 a glow of deep, dull red or an unex- 

 pected fleck of scarlet are the colors of 

 the woods, while in the open fields, the 

 grays and browns prevail more uniform- 

 ly. But what gives variety and tone to 

 these scant hues, is the wonderful power 

 of reflection that everything possesses. 



from the fields at our feet, to the distant 

 branches streaming smoke-like on the 

 far horizon. Scarcely a day passes but 

 there comes some rare and glorified mo- 

 ment when everything takes on a dif- 

 ferent coloring or shade of coloring, 

 from the clear, crisp shadow of blue 

 distance on the hills, to the red-gold 

 glinting of the broom-sage, from the 

 dull, deep, amethystine under-glow of 

 boughs against the sunset sky, to the 

 rosy-purple gleams the flush ' the stolid 

 clods like inspiration. 



Then everything seems irradiated 

 with a kind of glorified and happy pa- 

 tience. We see down into the "heart of 

 things" and it is all aglow with its low- 

 burning inner fires. But at all timeS; 

 there is a safeness, a security about ev- 

 erything, that inspires us with a con- 

 tinual steady hopefulness and good 

 cheer. Not one of Nature's children has 

 she forgotten, not one has she taken un- 

 awares, not one but is bewrapped and 

 overcoated snugly from the cold. Then 

 let the wind blow ever so bleakly over 

 the gusty fields, for every dried and ice- 

 hung grass-blade wagging in the gust 

 puts on a lusty air of bravado which 

 shames our hardiest stoicism. Or let 

 the snow fall ever so deeply, driving and 

 sifting into nooks and hollows, for at 

 the first thaw, out there peeps from its 

 receding skirts some little child-like 

 greenery to cheer us. Or let the gray 

 boughs be ever so bare or even a ragged 

 last year's leaf to wrap around them ; we 

 know that they are safely sheathed, and 

 smile serenely to ourselves at thought 

 of our ne.xt spring-time folded in a bud. 

 Ethel Allen Murphy. 



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