Each
branch raises itself when emancipated, thus changing the whole outline
of the growth; and the snow beneath is punctured with a thousand little
depressions, where the petty avalanches have just buried themselves and
disappeared.
In crossing this white level, we have been tracking our way across an
invisible pond, which was alive last week with five hundred skaters.
Now there is a foot of snow upon it, through which there is a boyish
excitement in making the first path. Looking back upon our track, it
proves to be like all other human paths, straight in intention, but
slightly devious in deed. We have gay companions on our way; for a
breeze overtakes us, and a hundred little simooms of drift whirl along
beside us, and whelm in miniature burial whole caravans of dry leaves.
Here, too, our track intersects with that of some previous passer; he
has but just gone on, judging by the freshness of the trail, and we can
study his character and purposes. The large boots betoken a wood-man or
ice-man: yet such a one would hardly have stepped so irresolutely where
a little film of water has spread between the ice and snow and given a
look of insecurity; and here again he has stopped to observe the wreaths
on this pendent bough, and this snow-filled bird's-nest. And there the
footsteps of the lover of beauty turn abruptly to the road again, and he
vanishes from us forever.
As we wander on through the wood, all the labyrinths of summer are
buried beneath one white inviting pathway, and the pledge of perfect
loneliness is given by the unbroken surface of the all-revealing snow.
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