defeats and victories of each, and the final triumph of one party, or
perhaps of neither! What pitched battles worthy to be chanted in
Homeric strains! What storming of fortresses built all of massive
snow-blocks! What feats of individual prowess and embodied onsets of
martial enthusiasm! And when some well-contested and decisive victory
had put a period to the war, both armies should unite to build a lofty
monument of snow upon the battlefield and crown it with the victor's
statue hewn of the same frozen marble. In a few days or weeks
thereafter the passer-by would observe a shapeless mound upon the
level common, and, unmindful of the famous victory, would ask, "How
came it there? Who reared it? And what means it?" The shattered
pedestal of many a battle-monument has provoked these questions when
none could answer.

Turn we again to the fireside and sit musing there, lending our ears
to the wind till perhaps it shall seem like an articulate voice and
dictate wild and airy matter for the pen. Would it might inspire me to
sketch out the personification of a New England winter! And that idea,
if I can seize the snow-wreathed figures that flit before my fancy,
shall be the theme of the next page.

How does Winter herald his approach? By the shrieking blast of latter
autumn which is Nature's cry of lamentation as the destroyer rushes
among the shivering groves where she has lingered and scatters the
sear leaves upon the tempest. When that cry is heard, the people wrap
themselves in cloaks and shake their heads disconsolately, saying,
"Winter is at hand." Then the axe of the woodcutter echoes sharp and
diligently in the forest; then the coal-merchants rejoice because each
shriek of Nature in her agony adds something to the price of coal per
ton; then the peat-smoke spreads its aromatic fragrance through the
atmosphere. A few days more, and at eventide the children look out of
the window and dimly perceive the flaunting of a snowy mantle in the
air. It is stern Winter's vesture. They crowd around the hearth and
cling to their mother's gown or press between their father's knees,
affrighted by the hollow roaring voice that bellows adown the wide
flue of the chimney.

It is the voice of Winter; and when parents and children hear it, they
shudder and exclaim, "Winter is come. Cold Winter has begun his reign
already." Now throughout New England each hearth becomes an altar
sending up the smoke of a continued sacrifice to the