trees.

* * * * *

_The Glamour of the Snow_

I

Hibbert, always conscious of two worlds, was in this mountain village
conscious of three. It lay on the slopes of the Valais Alps, and he had
taken a room in the little post office, where he could be at peace to
write his book, yet at the same time enjoy the winter sports and find
companionship in the hotels when he wanted it.

The three worlds that met and mingled here seemed to his imaginative
temperament very obvious, though it is doubtful if another mind less
intuitively equipped would have seen them so well-defined. There was
the world of tourist English, civilised, quasi-educated, to which he
belonged by birth, at any rate; there was the world of peasants to which
he felt himself drawn by sympathy--for he loved and admired their
toiling, simple life; and there was this other--which he could only call
the world of Nature. To this last, however, in virtue of a vehement
poetic imagination, and a tumultuous pagan instinct fed by his very
blood, he felt that most of him belonged. The others borrowed from it,
as it were, for visits. Here, with the soul of Nature, hid his central
life.

Between all three was conflict--potential conflict. On the skating-rink
each Sunday the tourists regarded the natives as intruders; in the
church the peasants plainly questioned: "Why do you come? We are here
to worship; you to stare and whisper!" For neither of these two worlds
accepted the other. And neither did Nature accept the tourists, for it
took advantage of their least mistakes, and indeed, even of the
peasant-world "accepted" only those who were strong and bold enough to
invade her savage domain with sufficient skill to protect themselves
from several forms of--death.

Now Hibbert was keenly aware of this potential conflict and want of
harmony; he felt outside, yet caught by it--torn in the three directions
because he was partly of each world, but wholly in only one. There
grew in him a constant, subtle effort--or, at least, desire--to unify
them and decide positively to which he should belong and live in.
The attempt, of course, was largely subconscious. It was the natural
instinct of a richly imaginative nature seeking the point of
equilibrium, so that the mind could feel at peace and his brain be free
to do good work.

Among the guests no one especially claimed his interest. The men were
nice but undistinguished--athletic scho