Snow, and the Quality of Whiteness. 121 
cumstances, and during certain aspects of nature 
that recur only at long intervals. And of all such 
aspects of nature and extraordinary phenomena, 
snow is perhaps the most impressive, and is cer- 
tainly one of the most widely known on the earth, 
and most intimately associated in the mind with 
the yearly suspension of nature’s beneficent activity, 
and all that this means to the human family—the 
failure of food and consequent want, and the suffer- 
ing and danger from intense cold. This traditional 
knowledge of an inclement period in nature only 
serves to intensify the animism that finds a given 
purpose in all natural phenomena, and sees in the 
whiteness of earth the sign of a great unwelcome 
change. Change not death, since nature’s life is 
eternal; butits sweet friendly warmth and softness 
have died out of it; there is no longer any recogni- 
tion, any bond; and if we were to fall down and 
perish by the wayside, there would be no com- 
passion: it is sitting apart and solitary, cold and 
repelling, its breath suspended, in a trance of grief 
or passion ; and although it sees us it is as though 
it saw us not, even as we see pebbles and withered 
leaves on the ground, when some great sorrow has 
dazed us, or when some deadly purpose is in our 
heart. 
Just as with regard to snow the animistic feeling 
is strongest in those who inhabit regions where | 
winter is severe, and who annually see this change 
in nature, so the ‘‘ muffled rollings of a milky sea” 
will strike more of panic to the sailor’s soul than to 
