either by man or beast, perhaps too by
the storms (for they had borne the brunt of these), had not the regular
shapes of the others; they were more gnarled, affording the snow an
opportunity to commit what ravages it chose among them. Their lowest
branches were in some places quite bowed to the ground, often making the
tree appear like an unbroken mass of white; others were fantastically
transformed into clumsy dwarfs, with only upper parts to their bodies,
or into sundry human forms, each with a white sack drawn over the head,
or a shirt that was not put on right.

Alongside of these awkward figures I noticed small clusters of deciduous
trees, over which but the faintest suspicion of snow was spread; a
single one, which stood apart from the rest, looked as though its
outmost white branches, as they grew finer and finer, gradually flowed
into the air; then there were young spruce trees which formed pyramid
upon pyramid of regular layers of snow. Close down by the sea, where
there were more stones, might now and then be seen a bramble bush. The
snow had spread itself on every thorn, so that the bush looked as if it
were strewed over with white berries.

I rounded a naze with a crag upon it, and here is where Skogstad proper
begins. The ridge recedes and is broken by the river. Again we see
gently sloping fields, and here lies the gard. The river flows farther
away; the red roof and a row of buildings alongside become visible. On
either side of the gard lie the housemen's places with their surrounding
grounds, but they are separated from the gard by fields on the one side
and by a wood or park on the other.

At the sight of the park I forgot all that had gone before. Originally
it was intended to slope down to the sea; but the stony ground had
evidently rendered this impossible, and so the trees on the lower square
had been felled; but in the course of years, instead of pine woods a
vigorous growth of deciduous trees had shot up. These, being of the same
year's growth, were of an equal height, and extended all the way up to
the venerable pine trees in the park. The effect of the delicate
encircling the ponderous, the light opposed to the heavy, the low and
perpetually level at the foot of the upward-soaring and powerful, was
very fine.

The eye reveled in this, searching for forms; I would combine a hundred
branches in one survey, because they ran parallel in the same curve, at
about the same height; or I would single