sovereigns in the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, till some mortal breaks
their spell? What sage counsels must be theirs, as they nod their weary
heads and whisper ghostly memories and old men's tales to each other,
while the red leaves dance on the snowy sward below, or a fox or
squirrel steals hurriedly through the wild and wintry night! Here and
there is some discrowned Lear, who has thrown off his regal mantle, and
stands in faded russet, misplaced among the monarchs.

What a simple and stately hospitality is that of Nature in winter! The
season which the residents of cities think an obstruction is in the
country an extension of intercourse: it opens every forest from here
to Labrador, free of entrance; the most tangled thicket, the most
treacherous marsh becomes passable; and the lumberer or moose-hunter,
mounted on his snow-shoes, has the world before him. He says "good
snow-shoeing," as we say "good sleighing"; and it gives a sensation like
a first visit to the sea-side and the shipping, when one first sees
exhibited, in the streets of Bangor or Montreal, these delicate Indian
conveyances. It seems as if a new element were suddenly opened for
travel, and all due facilities provided. One expects to go a little
farther, and see in the shop-windows, "Wings for sale,--gentlemen's and
ladies' sizes." The snow-shoe and the birch-canoe,--what other dying
race ever left behind it two memorials so perfect and so graceful?

The shadows thrown by the trees upon the snow are blue and soft, sharply
defined, and so contrasted with the gleaming white as to appear narrower
than the boughs which cast them. There is something subtle and fantastic
about these shadows. Here is a leafless larch-sapling, eight feet high.
The image of the lower boughs is traced upon the snow, distinct and firm
as cordage, while the higher ones grow dimmer by fine gradations, until
the slender topmost twig is blurred and almost effaced. But the denser
upper spire of the young spruce by its side throws almost as distinct a
shadow as its base, and the whole figure looks of a more solid texture,
as if you could feel it with your hand. More beautiful than either is
the fine image of this baby hemlock: each delicate leaf droops above as
delicate a copy, and here and there the shadow and the substance kiss
and frolic with each other in the downy snow.

The larger larches have a different plaything: on the bare branches,
thickly studded with buds, cling airily