[ 120 ^ 



AFTER THE ICE STORM i 



January 1, 1853. This morning we have some- 

 thing between ice and frost on the trees, etc. The 

 whole earth, as last night, but much more, is encased 

 in ice, which on the plowed fields makes a singular icy 

 coat a quarter of an inch or more in thickness. This 

 frozen drizzle, collected around the slightest cores, 

 gives prominence to the least withered herbs and 

 grasses. Where yesterday was a plain, smooth field, 

 appears now a teeming crop of fat, icy herbage. The 

 stems of the herbs on their north sides are enlarged 

 from ten to a hundred times. What a crash of jewels 

 as you walk! The most careless walker, who never 

 deigned to look at these humble weeds before, cannot 

 help observing them now. The drooping birches 

 along the edges of woods are the most feathery, 

 fairy-like ostrich plumes of the trees, and the color 

 of their trunks increases the delusion. The weight 

 of the ice gives to the pines the forms which northern 

 trees, like the firs, constantly wear, bending and 

 twisting the branches; for the twigs and plumes of 

 the pines, being frozen, remain as the wind held 

 them, and new portions of the trunk are exposed. 



^ An ice-storm such as Thoreau describes so intimately is by no means 

 an annual occurrence in Concord. Indeed, in his entire journal Thoreau 

 mentions only one other similar phenomenon. It required some years of 

 "watchful waiting" before the opportunity arrived to secure photo- 

 graphs illustrating Thoreau's description. The single view herewith re- 

 produced gives only a bare suggestion of the beauty of the outdoor world 

 under such conditions. H. W. G. 



