172 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
Coming out upon a high hillside, more ex- 
posed to the direct fury of the sleet, we find 
nature wearing a wilder look. Every white 
birch clump around us is bent divergingly to 
the ground, each white form prostrated in mute 
despair upon the whiter bank. The bare, writh- 
ing branches of that sombre oak grove are 
steeped in snow, and in the misty air they look 
so remote and foreign that there is not a wild 
creature of the Norse mythology who might 
not stalk from beneath their haunted branches. 
Buried races, Teutons and Cimbri, might tramp 
solemnly forth from those weird arcades. The 
soft pines on this nearer knoll seem separated 
from them by ages and generations. On the 
farther hills spread woods of smaller growth, 
like forests of spun glass, jewelry by the acre 
provided for this coronation of winter. 
We descend a steep bank, little pellets of 
snow rolling hastily beside us, and leaving 
enamelled furrows behind. Entering the shel- 
tered and sunny glade, we are assailed by a 
sudden warmth whose languor is almost oppres- 
sive. Wherever the sun strikes upon the pines 
and hemlocks, there is a household gleam which 
gives a more vivid sensation than the diffused 
brilliancy of summer. The sunbeams maintain 
a thousand secondary fires in the reflection of 
light from every tree and stalk, for the preser- 
