e its bright surface as you will, it is ever beaten down
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
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 wall-sides, and the chickadee 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 traveler cherishes a warmer
fire within the folds of his cl