has yet fallen within the circumference of my view, were it heaped up
together, would hardly equal the hillock of a grave. Thus gradually,
by silent and stealthy influences, are great changes wrought. These
little snow-particles, which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls
through the air, will bury the great earth under their accumulated
mass, nor permit her to behold her sister sky again for dreary months.
We, likewise, shall lose sight of our mother's familiar visage, and
must content ourselves with looking heavenward the oftener.

Now, leaving the storm to do his appointed office, let us sit down,
pen in hand, by our fireside. Gloomy as it may seem, there is an
influence productive of cheerfulness, and favorable to imaginative
thought, in the atmosphere of a snowy day. The native of a southern
clime may woo the muse beneath the heavy shade of summer foliage,
reclining on banks of turf, while the, sound of singing birds and
warbling rivulets chimes in with the music of his soul. In our brief
summer, I do not think, but only exist in the vague enjoyment of a
dream. My hour of inspiration--if that hour ever comes--is when the
green log hisses upon the hearth, and the bright flame, brighter for
the gloom of the chamber, rustles high up the chimney, and the coals
drop tinkling down among the growing heaps of ashes. When the
casement rattles in the gust, and the snow-flakes or the sleety
raindrops pelt hard against the window-panes, then I spread out my
sheet of paper, with the certainty that thoughts and fancies will
gleam forth upon it, like stars at twilight, or like violets in May,--
perhaps to fade as soon. However transitory their glow, they at least
shine amid the darksome shadow which the clouds of the outward sky
fling through the room. Blessed, therefore, and reverently welcomed
by me, her true-born son, be New England's winter, which makes us, one
and all, the nurslings of the storm, and sings a familiar lullaby even