anew, and washed even of the dust of the foot of man by the returning
sea. You may write upon its fine-grained face with a crow-quill--you
may course over its dazzling expanse with a troop of chariots.

Most wondrous and beautiful of all, within twenty yards of the surf, or
for an hour after the tide has left the sand, it holds the water
without losing its firmness, and is like a gay mirror, bright as the
bosom of the sea. (By your leave, Thalaba!) And now lean over the
dasher and see those small fetlocks striking up from beneath--the
flying mane, the thoroughbred action, the small and expressive head, as
perfect in the reflection as in the reality; like Wordsworth's swan, he

"_Trots_ double, _horse_ and shadow."

You would swear you were skimming the surface of the sea; and the
delusion is more complete as the white foam of the "tenth wave" skims
in beneath wheel and hoof, and you urge on with the treacherous element
gliding away visibly beneath you.




HENRY DAVID THOREAU.

THE WINTER WOODS.

[From _Excursions_.]

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