floated and scintillated, as though buoyed up by an electric current. Only in the sunlight could this fine, glancing snowdust be seen. The shadows showed no

least trace of it.

What liberality of affection in the universal have we if we do not love the life of all nature, including dumb animals, which, for all we may know, are endued with a portion of the same spirit as ourselves? To love humanity alone, to have no compassionate interest in these unlanguaged ones, is like loving the members of our own house and family, merely, with no feeling to spend on any unrelated individual. Humanity is our own immediate family; but, not to be clannish, let us make friends with the blameless good citizens outside this kinship bond. I would enter by sympathetic imagining into the life of bird and beast; would try to resolve their possible questionings, reminiscences, hopes, and fears.

What are the winter cogitations of the little brown bat that lives in the closet, and is called their "familiar" by the N family? They brought the creature out for my inspection. Its hair, or fur, of a medium shade of brown, is soft and fine. Its upright, rather large ears, yet of a membranous delicacy and thinness, give their owner an expression of alertness and sagacity. Its face is long, and narrows towards the nose, suggesting the pig's physiognomy. The eyes, round, scarce a pin-head in size, are like black diamond points. Its mouth, when open, shows a pink interior; teeth white and tiny; and the tongue, a bit of pink tape or ribbon, is wonderfully dexterous in its motions. The "familiar," when a toy saucer of water was placed before it, drank, or lapped, with a kind of dogday thirst. The toed and fingered wings (why not pterodactyl?), when spread out, were half transparent in their thinness, the underside color being reddish in spots. A little water was poured into the box inhabited by the bat, who there

upon sat up nearly erect, deliberately bent its head around between body and outspread wing, and proceeded to lick off the water, very much after the fashion of puss when surprised by a sudden shower bath.

It is a distress siege for the sparrows and other small birds. Opening the door this morning, I picked up, on the step, a dead sparrow, frozen, like a pebble with feathers fastened to it. If these small mites were human, I can guess what their reflections would be in this trying time; they would question, what offense had they ever committed, that Heaven should inflict such punishment? But the sparrows, as if they accepted once and for all the parable which mercifully mentions them, enter into no discriminations arraigning Providence. If they survive the freezing night, their spirits and hopes suffer no visible diminution.

This morning, a downy woodpecker, after tapping about the posts that support the clothesline, and finding small entertainment there, flew to the ground, where crumbs from the table had been thrown and frozen under, unluckily, by the dripping of the eaves. With hammer-like blows, how vigorously he pecked at the stubborn ice! I did not remember that I had ever before seen a woodpecker alight upon the ground. And now the dear little chickadee sits on his bone (tacked by careful hands to the plum-tree for his sole benefit), sits, and sings, and says most enchanting things, in the intervals between nipping and picking. He has one note which sounds like the human voice practicing mi, re, mi, re, a clear musical note, filled with sentiment, and somewhat unlike the piquant conversation usually exchanged by a flock of his merry fellows.

What a very gymnast is the typical chickadee! As he twists himself on his perch, bringing his head under his feet, I

am reminded of similar grotesque actions in the parrot. How tame and curious, hopping down through the branches, until just above one's head! There is a winnowing sound in the flight of the chickadee which recalls the rustling noise of the humming-bird's wings, or the night-moth hovering over flowers, in the far-away antipode of the season. Responsive to this sweetest note heard in all winterdom comes the terse staccato "yah, yah," of the fellowshiping nuthatches. This sharp note, sounded from so many different places, might be paralleled by the going off of firecrackers, one after another, here and there, at random.

A young farmer tells me a good story about a woodpecker. While chopping in the woods, he observed one of these birds perseveringly boring in one particular spot high on the trunk of a tree. As the bird kept up this industry all the forenoon, in the afternoon the farmer, out of curiosity, and with the prodigality of our Western woodsmen, cut the tree down, and proceeded to investigate by deepening the hole already made by the persistent woodpecker. Finally, there was laid bare a large white grub, which rolled out and fell to the ground. The best part of the story is this: the woodpecker, which had all the time remained on the field of action, now came and devoured the grub. I dare say the woodpecker innocently thought that the man had seen its honest effort to secure food, and had generously come to its assistance.

Watched the morning star out of the sky. It stood forth, sparkling and clear, in color between gold and silver, foiled by the pale sapphire of the sky. I thought it would be a short and easy thing to see the end of the chase, with the sun so close upon the star's track, so I proposed a walk towards the east, keeping the bright fugitive in view until

it should disappear. It was almost a thrilling chase; for, as I walked, the star, to all intents and purposes of the eye, also hurried along, seeming to thread in and out among the treetops, like a very firefly of the morning! Finally, I took up a stationary watch. The star, too, kept watch of the sun, showing some tremulous apprehension; yet it stayed, growing all the time finer and mistier, till one who had not watched it from the start could scarcely have detected its form or place. Looking away, I was able to find it again only by tracing its position with reference to a certain roof and treetop. To the tense nerve of vision, the sky became alive with phantasmal stars; these, however, quite separable from the real star. Once, as a light cloud of chimney smoke went up, the star was more definitely seen, as when the sun is looked at through smoked glass. The red orb of the sun soon pushed up between two bands of dark cloud; and yet the star would not out! It was not until fifteen minutes later that its bright ore sank to rise not again, in the broad flow of daylight. Quite as I expected: I did not see the star disappear; while I was looking, behold, there was no star there, but the instant of its withdrawal was not marked. We never see the stars come into the sky, or vanish out of it. Presto, they are there, or they are absent, without warning!

What pleasure the eye finds in discovering sharp antitheses, even of the most trivial nature! Looking across the snowy roof just now, I observed a pleasing effect produced by a sooty chimney against the pale blue sky as background. Encouraged by that delicate, faint-tinted foil, the chimney soot insists upon looking like some sort of rich brown-black efflorescence or rust, a velvety growth of mould, or a minute black fungus. The chimney becomes, at this moment, as piquing to my fancy as if it were some storied tower or column. I am

aware that this is "all in my eye," as the common saying is. But, more than this, the eye is a great autocrat, and will not be denied; if it seeks luxury, grandeur, adventure, out of the simplest elements, it will itself construct all these. It is surely not well to look back repiningly, to trouble ourselves with the sorrowful enumeration of what the individual lot has foregone or has failed to achieve; yet a sort of generous disquiet may haunt us on this subject of losses. And not from altruism, merely, but from a kind of sublimated economics, which desires the conservation of blessings, we may fairly enough, if vainly also, wish that others might grasp the opportunity we failed to grasp, that some one shall win where our speed and strength fell short. "Thus Nisus stumbled on the slippery place While his young friend performed and won the race."

though the whole body of snow, like the fur of some animals, were charged with electricity. Dark places, bare of snow, dry blades of grass, also, twinkle with pin-points of keen, clear light, as they might if sprinkled with a more vivid dew. This is, indeed, winter dew; and the effect of the frost is all the more enchanting and unaccountable because of the complete silence. The faint, occasional glitter of the dew in summer nights appears half to proceed from the motion of insect life hidden under the grass blades. Besides, the wind and all leafy stirs seem to help account for the flickering changes of the dew. But this frozen dew, the frost, glints elfishly along the still surface of the winterbound earth, and, by a twinkling pantomime, appears to keep up communication with those greater frost crystals overhead, the stars and planets of the

A star, or the light of a lamp with a dark space about it, to the eye takes the shape of a three-pointed star; one pencil of rays vertical, the other two drawn obliquely from the common centre downwards. Some slight variation from this figure occurs by bending the head to left or right; but the three divisions are still sufficiently indicated.

The evening is one of unusual beauty in respect to frost scintillations. Patches of snow here and there sparkle as though nothing less precious than diamond dust had been sprinkled abroad, or, to seek a homelier comparison, as

The moon this evening is not queen in an absolute monarchy; all the eminent stars keeping their places and shining splendidly with live fire of silver beams. How different always is the light of the stars from that of the moon, which is surely the lamp of the dead, throwing a dead planet's lack-lustre eyebeams! And to-night the stars appear far away.

not very

"The black elm-tops among the freezing stars,"

says one. Yonder bevy of beauties gazes out through a lattice work of lithe maple.

The circumpolar movement of the stars, in these jocund clear nights of the winter, suggests a familiar and perhaps too trivial comparison. I think of the whole sparkling company as of a ring of children moving with hands joined about one of their own number placed in the centre of the circle. They dance on and on, around and around, disappear, return, disappear. I could fancy the sky swims giddily with their changeful splendors.

Last night when I stretched the thread

of enchantment between the sashes of the window, Day-before-Yesterday and Day-after-To-Morrow immediately met in the caressing sound that arose from the windswept chord. Again, as always before, the sound seemed such as I might at any time have heard, had I but listened for it. And to-night there comes a sound faintly tentative, more like a low, deep note from a horn than the vibration of a chord. The very window, where the slight thread is stretched between wooden keys, seems to me haunted; to the ear a strange, solemn, mournful apparition coming and going, now advancing, now retiring. What does it seek? A brave trumpeter! Where fell the legion which its fanfare incited? And do they not fight the fatal fight over again to-night in the windy fields of heaven?

Examining the wind-harp later in the evening, I find that it has, instead of keys of wood at each end of the crevice, two drops of ice, holding the thread be tween them, some ten inches apart. Thus Nature has far more to do with this simple instrument than have mortal hands. I provide the silken string only; Ice keys it and gives the pitch, and Wind plays upon it at will.

The wind-harp is not so unlike other searchers and singers of the unknown. Always uprises the strain bravely through the first, third, and fifth of the scale, but the ear waits in vain to hear the keynote reached; only the wailing seventh is achieved. But one poor half-tone is wanting; yet great Æolus himself cannot overcome the law which governs the chord. So likewise fail of completion the ascending thought and utterance of the artist whom the winds of imagination and emotion sway as they list. How seldom is the cadence satisfied!

This slender homesick tree that died
Set in an alien soil unkind,
Uptorn in autumn, cast aside,

Lay bare to winter's frost and wind.

I brought it to my hearth last night; I said, "Thy gardener will I be!" And in a bed of coals so bright

I planted there the young dead tree. "Now live, and bloom a little span."

The kindly flames compliant laughed: They bathed its roots, and blithely ran Along the bare and piteous shaft.

Then fiery buds did deck the tree
That never one green leaf had graced.
O Gardener, do the same by me,

Not leave me blanching on the waste!

Remembering Milton's requirement that he who would write an heroic poem should lead an heroic life, I am persuaded that he who would write lyrics must lead a lyrical life. He must in his thoughts be buoyant, impressible, keenly alive in all the senses; answering, as an echo, the music of many-voiced nature and human life. He must not suffer himself to be dulled, though in contact with dullness; must not be made poor, though keeping Poverty's company in an attic; must not be piqued into sordid curiosity; must not fret at time's deceitful slipping away, or at opportunity's non-arriving. Light, light, light must be his step, and list, list for all sweet and stirring sounds of the way. Whatever is met therein, he must, as a stranger, give it welcome.

that the perfectly insulating quality of one's enthusiasm is deteriorating; that one is one's self becoming dull to those finer sights and sounds, those luminous. impressions, which are not the prize of all, nor perhaps of any at all times. In genuine and unalloyed rapture one does not question whether he sees and hears more than others may see and hear. The vision being reality to him who has it, it does not profit to quarrel with those who may not entertain the same. It is only when the visionary faculty departs or weakens that we perceive the wretchedness and vacuity of life without it, and that we question curiously how they manage to live who have no use of this faculty.

A savage Western blizzard fanning boreal frosty fire from its wings. The rudest, if not the coldest day of the season thus far. Looking out on the white gale, it seemed to us that we were in the very mill of the storm, the place where the chaff was winnowed and where the grist was ground, to be distributed by revolutions of the wind every whither over the face of the earth! A few steps taken out of doors in such a storm lend the excitement and sense of adventure of an arctic expedition compressed into minutes instead of months; while the knowledge that home is close by, though sheeted by the wrath of the storm to invisibility, piques and comforts with the contrast presented. Out of the west comes a wild raid of wind lifting the snow around us. These are the driving sands of the White Desert. These deserted ways are streets of that City of Desolation wherein dwell, according to the Swedish seer, the thrice inane shades of those who were esteemed wise on the earth, but who loved and benefited none of their fellow-beings.

stillness of the keen night. One maple creaks like an old wellsweep in a summer drought. A deep fissure in its bark extends several feet downwards from the forking of the trunk, showing how frost has already driven an entering wedge.

The cracking of timbers in the house is a sound rather of the night than of the day. Although the added stillness of the night might seem to explain the phenomenon, it can more easily be accounted for on a mythological basis; say there is a lurking, mischievous Norse spirit who, when sober householders are sound asleep, delights, with great double fist, to smite the timbers, and terrify slumbering mortals in their puny dwellings.

How

The chosen articulation of cold weather is a fine falsetto, or the utterance of a tense, well-rosined string. shrill, though small, the sound of bits of icicles clashing and falling together! The snow squeaks underfoot with the peevish cry of a bat; or the noise might be likened (since we are fond of making extremes meet in our weather characterizations) to the hissing of a hot iron when water is poured upon it.

In walking over slippery ground, the muscles in the soles of the feet involuntarily contract, as though, for security's sake, a sort of suction process were employed; perhaps similar to that which enables a fly to make the tour of the ceiling overhead. There is a prehensile effort on the part of the foot, the toes endeavoring, as it were, to make of themselves fingers, the better to take hold of the ground.

A Silver Day. Since morning the trees and the grass have been thickly hung with ice. Nothing could be more pleasing in its way than this flashing garniture draped over the dissoluteness and general squalor of the half-melted old snow. The trees, covered, limb, branch, and twig, with ice, were, to the eye, of the density which the first leafage imparts in May. They looked as though