Snow Flakes

From Twice Told Tales

There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning!-and, through
the partially frosted window-panes, I love to watch the gradual
beginning of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely
through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost
alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of
the atmosphere. These are not the big flakes, heavy with moisture,
which melt as they touch the ground, and are portentous of a soaking
rain. It is to be, in good earnest, a wintry storm. The two or three
people, visible on the side-walks, have an aspect of endurance, a
blue-nosed, frosty fortitude, which is evidently assumed in
anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day. By nightfall, or at
least before the sun sheds another glimmering smile upon us, the
street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snow-
drifts. The soil, already frozen for weeks past, is prepared to
sustain whatever burden may be laid upon it; and, to a northern eye,
the landscape will lose its melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty
of its own, when Mother Earth, like her children, shall have put on
the fleecy garb of her winter's wear. The cloud-spirits are slowly
weaving her white mantle. As yet, indeed, there is barely a rime like
hoarfrost over the brown surface of the street; the withered green of
the grass-plat is still discernible; and the slated roofs of the
houses do but begin to look gray, instead of black. All the snow that
has yet fallen within the circumference of my view, were it heaped up
together, would hardly equal the hillock of a grave. Thus gradually,
by silent and stealthy influences, are great changes wrought. These
little snow-particles, which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls
through the air, will bury the great earth under their accumulated
mass, nor permit her to behold her sister sky again for dreary months.
We, likewise, shall lose sight of our mother's familiar visage, and
must content ourselves with looking heavenward the oftener.

Now, leaving the storm to do his appointed office, let us sit down,
pen in hand, by our fireside. Gloomy as it may seem, there is an
influence productive of cheerfulness, and favorable to imaginative
thought, in the atmosphere of a snowy day. The native of a southern
clime may woo the muse beneath the heavy shade of summer foliage,
reclining on banks of turf, while the, sound of singing birds and
warbling rivulets chimes in with the music of his soul. In our brief
summer, I do not think, but only exist in the vague enjoyment of a
dream. My hour of inspiration--if that hour ever comes--is when the
green log hisses upon the hearth, and the bright flame, brighter for
the gloom of the chamber,