everywhere transparent; the woods were plumed with snow, and over all
shone the sun of June, and the keen air tingled in the veins like wine.
Beside the road the drifts ran high, hollowed by the wind into a
hundred curves and cavities, and in each the reflected light made a
tapestry of delicate violet and rose. Those who imagine that snow is
only white--dead, cold white--have never seen the pure new-fallen snow,
when the stricture of the frost begins to bind it; such snow has every
colour of the rainbow in it, and where it is beaten fine it is like a
dust of diamonds. Under a hard grey sky snow appears dead white; but
under such a sun as this it glowed and sparkled with all the glories of
an ice cave. And then came the sunset, a sunset to be dreamed of.
Skiddaw was a pyramid of rosy flame; great saffron seas of light lay
over the Catbells, the immense shoulders of Borrowdale were purple, and
the lake was truly a sea of glass and fire. Nor was this a singular
and unmatched day. For a whole month the pageant of the snow lasted.
Close to my own door were glories scarcely inferior to those of
Borrowdale and Derwentwater. The glen was rich with all the fantastic
arabesque of the frost, the moor was like a frozen sea, and four miles
away lay Buttermere, ringing from morn to night with the sound of
skates. There is no greater error than to suppose winter a drear and
joyless season in the country. It has delights of its own unimagined
by the townsman, to whom winter means burst pipes and slushy streets,
and snow that is soiled even as it falls. But among mountains winter
has its own incomparable glories, and holds a pageant not inferior to
summer's.

But even in days of rain life had its pleasures. However bad the
weather might be there were few days when we could not be abroad for
some hours, and none when the mountains had not some peculiar beauty to
reveal. At the end of a day of rain there were often splendid