L 123 ] 



January 30, 1841. The trees covered with snow 

 admit a very plain and clean light, but not brilliant, 

 as if through windows of ground glass ; a sort of white 

 darkness it is, all of the sun's splendor that can be 

 retained. 



You glance up these paths, closely imbowered by 

 bent trees, as through the side aisles of a cathedral, 

 and expect to hear a choir chanting from their depths. 

 You are never so far in them as they are far before 

 you. Their secret is where you are not and where 

 your feet can never carry you. 



The snow falls on no two trees alike, but the forms 

 it assumes are as various as those of the twigs and 

 leaves which receive it. They are, as it were, pre- 

 determined by the genius of the tree. So one divine 

 spirit descends alike on all, but bears a peculiar fruit 

 in each. The divinity subsides on all men, as the 

 snowflakes settle on the fields and ledges and takes 

 the form of the various clefts and surfaces on which 

 it lodges. 



Journal, i, 184, 185. 



