If our bodies were fed with pure and
simple elements, and not with a stimulating and heating diet, they would
afford no more pasture for cold than a leafless twig, but thrive like the
trees, which find even winter genial to their expansion.
The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact.
Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of
autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and
tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest
places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and
searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but
what has a virtue in it; and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold
and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of
sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called
in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of
the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to
breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness and purity are visible to
the eye, and we would fain stay out long and late, that the-gales may sigh
through us, too, as through the leafless trees, and fit us for the
winter:--as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, which
will stead us in all seasons.
There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out,
and which no cold can chill. It finally melts the great snow, and in
January or July is only buried under a thicker or thinner covering. In the
coldest day it flows somewhere, and the snow melts around every tree. This
field of winter rye, which sprouted late in the fall, and now speedily
dissolves the snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered. We feel
warmed by it. In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue, and we resort
in thought to a trickling rill, with its bare stones shining in the sun,
and to warm springs in the woods, with as much eagerness as rabbits and
robins. The steam which rises from swamps and pools, is as dear and
domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire could ever equal the
sunshine of a winter's day, when the meadow mice come out by the
wallsides, and the chicadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? The warmth
comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in
summer; and when we feel his beams on our backs as we are treading some
snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun
which has followed us into that by-place.
This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast, for in the
coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveller cherishes a warmer
fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. A
healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter,
summer is in his heart. There is the south. Thither have all birds and
insects migrated, and around the warm springs in his breast are gathered
the robin and the lark.
At length, having reached the edge of the woods, and shut out the gadding
town, we enter within their covert as we go under the roof of a cottage,
and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They are glad
and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in summer. As we
stand in the midst of the pines, in the nickering and checkered light
which straggles but little way into their maze, we wonder if the towns
have ever heard their simple story.
