The great drifts, the long levels of snow in the open places, are so many exhilarating opportunities to him, and he accepts the invitation of nature to come abroad with her not as an inferior but as an equal.

The snow-shoe is ingeniously devised to diffuse man's ponderosity over a larger surface; to enable him to go by artifice where the natural construction of his body would forbid his going. This well devised aid to escape from civilization sets free the mind at the same time that it removes a physical limitation. The man who cannot get away from himself on snow-shoes is a galley slave who deserves the oar and will never escape from it. But most men who find themselves afield so equipped cast off all bondage of mind to old habits and limitations by an effort so natural that it is purely unconscious. They are filled with an insatiable desire to take deep breaths, to penetrate every recess of the world about them, to overcome every obstacle and leave nothing untried. In the vigorous morning air all enterprises are open, and one waits neither to count the hours nor the difficulties. The earth shines like the sky, and a kind of ineffable splendor crowns the day. Level field and rolling meadow, stretch of lowland and sweep of mountain, unbroken surface of lake and curving whiteness of river losing itself behind the hills-all these lie within the vision and invite exploration. The dark green masses of pine and spruce rest the eye dazzled by the universal brilliancy. The mountains have a marvelous delicacy

and charm; instead of presenting a flat surface of dead white they reveal a thousand soft and rounded outlines; each tree is individualized and stands out in clear and perfect symmetry, and every branch and leaf is white with exquisite frost work. At sunset, when the last tender light of the winter day falls on those deep, rich masses of frost tracery, one will see a vanishing loveliness as tender as the flush of the rose leaf and as ethereal as the light of a solitary star when it first touches the edges of the hills. The day ends in Hesperian splendor.

But, fortunately, the day is still in its prime, and, as one chooses the deepest drift and climbs to the top of the nearest hill, he wishes it might never end. Arrived at the summit, breathless and exultant, he looks for the hollow which has caught the drifts, and, after a moment's rest, he runs swiftly down to the pond below, sliding on the crusts, and moving more slowly and cautiously over light snow of whose depth and yielding quality he has perhaps already had sad experience. The level surface of the pond lacks that variety which is the charm of snow-shoeing, and so one skirts the shore and takes the first accessible opening into the woods; and now delight and danger are mixed in the most delicious compound. The remoteness, the silence, and the solitude of the winter woods are simply enchanting; the sky is softly blue between the "bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang"; every twig is snow-bound, and the only evidence of

life is the track of the rabbit or the fox. One tramps on, jubilant and self-forgetful, until suddenly some unseen root catches in the interstices of the snow-shoe, and then alas for human greatness! But the disaster is only momentary-is, indeed, part of the novel and fascinating experience. On and on through the deep recesses of the forest one makes his way, and at every turn some lovely or impressive wintry scene frames itself for permanent hanging in the memory. Now it is a little snow covered hollow where one is sure the mosses grow thick in summer; now it is a solitary tree whose tracery of branches is exquisitely etched against the sky; now it is a side hill swiftly descending to the narrow brook, the music of whose running still lingers softly cadenced in the ear of memory; now it is a sudden glimpse of the mountains that rise in the wide silence and solitude like primeval altars whose lofty fires are lighted at sunrise and sunset; and now, as one leaves the forest behind, the last picture is the river winding through the dark, wild mountain gorge, its waters rushing impatient and tumultuous over the ice that strives in vain to fetter them.

The short day is already hurrying to its close; but its brevity has no power over the memories one has plucked from wood and field. Reluctantly one hurries homeward. The smoke from the little village in the hollow rises in straight white lines above every house, and as one pauses for a moment, before descending, to take in the picture, one recalls

a similar moment of which Thoreau has preserved the fleeting impression: "The windows on the skirts of the village reflect the setting sun with intense brilliancy, a dazzling glitter, it is so cold. Standing thus on one side of the hill, I begin to see a pink light reflected from the snow about fifteen minutes before the sun sets. This gradually deepens to purple and violet in some places, and the pink is very distinct, especially when, after looking at the simply white snow on other sides, you turn your eyes to the hill. Even after all direct sunlight is withdrawn from the hill-top, as well as from the valley in which you stand, you see, if you are prepared to discern it, a faint and delicate tinge of purple and violet there." But the vanishing beauty of this hour eludes even the pencil of Thoreau, and as you take off your snow-shoes you are aware that you have become the possessor of a day which you will always long to share with others, but the memory of which, in spite of all your efforts toward expression, will remain incommunicable.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BESIDE THE ISIS.

THERE is a willful spirit in the study-fire which eludes all attempts to make it the servant of human moods and habits. It is gay and even boisterous on days when it ought to be melancholy, and it is despondent at times when it ought to be cheerful.

There is much that is akin to human thought in it, and there is much that is alien; for the wild, free life of the woods blazes and sings in its flames. Its glow rests now on one and now on another of the objects that lie within its magic circle; one day it seems to seek the poet's corner, and lingers with a kind of bright and merry tenderness about those rows of shining names; on other days it makes its home with the travelers, as if in fancy mingling its softer radiance with the fiery brightness of the desert, or breaking a little the gloom of the arctic night. Sometimes it lies soft and warm on one of the two or three faces that hang on the study walls; on the old poet whose memory lends a deep and beautiful interest to one of the quaintest of Old World towns; or on the keen, pure face of one so modern and American that, although the cadence of the pine