novel and fascinating experience. On and on through the deep recesses of the forest one makes his way, and at every some lovely or impressive wintry scene frames itself for permanent hanging in the memory. Now it is a little snowcovered 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 Even after all direct sunlight is withdrawn from the hill-top, as well as from the valley in which you stand, you see, if you are prepared to discern it, a faint and delicate tinge of purple and violet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

HERE is a wilful 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 travellers, 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 breaks the silence where he sleeps, he is still so far in advance of us that we cannot call ourselves his contemporaries. To-day it rests contentedly on a bit of landscape to which one's imagination goes out in these spring days as to one of those enchanting places which are its visible homes. It is a glimpse of the garden of New College at Oxford, with the beautiful Magdalen tower in the distance; the venerable trees, the stretch of velvety sward, the ivy-covered gate in the foreground. As the eye rests upon it memory fills in the imperfect picture; the bit of the old city wall hidden by the dense masses of ivy, the walk shadowed by ancient trees, the sculptured walls of the College - these