NOVEMBER. 
331 
their green transparency ; the hum of bees ; the crinking of 
grasshoppers ; the arrowy flight of the dragon-fly ; the bright- 
winged butterfly ; the Httle pearly moths hurrying from bush 
to bush ; and the thousands of little insects, too minute for 
enumeration^ almost too minute for vision^ which throng the 
air, reflecting tiny flashes of light in every direction from 
their filmy wings^ make the summer full of life and joyous- 
ness. Now^ all this has ceased : the fields are deserted by 
the husbandman ; no insects flit to and fro ; no leaves glit- 
ter in the sun; — now and then the quick rattle of the red 
squirrel is heard, or a few crows caw as they sail over the 
woods, or a blue jay raises a discordant scream as he flies 
from one tree -top to another, or the black-capped titmouse 
twitters a few moments from the branches of some thick 
balsam, or a sere beech-leaf slowly rustles to the ground ; — 
but all these are casual interruptions, only heard at inter- 
vals, and seem to make the intervening silence still more 
dead. 
Charles. — The solitude, however, is not unpleasing ; the 
brightness of the sun and the freshness of the morning air 
prevent anything like a tendency to melancholy. 
F, — How extremely beautiful are all the forms of conge- 
lation ! whether we examine the filmy star-like flakes of 
snow ; the needles shooting across the surface of freezing 
water ; the curled and fantastic leaves traced upon the win- 
dow-pane ; the curious spongy masses of columnar ice formed 
among the furrows of ploughed land, or the delicate hoar 
frost on the lowly herbage ; each forms a volume in itself, 
and each is a monument of skill and wisdom. Look at this 
stalk of grass : how elegantly is it decorated ! a thick series 
of white crystals, like glassy feathers, stand out at right an- 
gles from the stalk, radiating in every direction, and extend- 
ing not only all up the main stem, but even to the remotest 
extremities of the panicle. 
