14 



WINTER SUNSHINE. 



They seem like pure electricity — like friendly and re- 

 cuperating lightning. Are we led to think electricity 

 abounds only in summer, when we see in the storm- 

 clouds as it were, the veins and ore-beds of it ? I im- 

 agine it is equally abundant in winter, and more equa- 

 ble and better tempered. Who ever breasted a snow- 

 storm without being excited and exhilarated, as if this 

 meteor had come charged with latent aurorae of the 

 North, as doubtless it has ? It is like being pelted with 

 sparks from a battery. Behold the frost-work on the 

 pane — the wild, fantastic limnings and etchings, can 

 there be any doubt but this subtle agent has been here ? 

 Where is it not ? It is the life of the crystal, the archi- 

 tect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the 

 sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it. When I 

 come in at night after an all day tramp I am charged 

 like a Leyden jar, my hair crackles and snaps beneath 

 the comb like a cat's back, and a strange, new glow dif- 

 fuses itself through my system. 



It is a spur that one feels at this season more than at 

 any other. How nimbly you step forth ! The woods 

 roar, the waters shine, and the hills look invitingly 

 near. You do not miss the flowers and the songsters, 

 or wish the trees or the fields any different, or heavens 

 any nearer. Every object pleases. A rail fence, run- 

 ning athwart the hills, now in sunshine and now in 

 shadow — how the eye lingers upon it ! Or the straight 

 light-gray trunks of the trees, where the woods have 

 recently been laid open by a road or a clearing, how 



