oak than is kindled on any hearth. A
healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter
summer is in his heart. There is the South. Thither have all birds
and insects migrated, and around the warm springs in his breast are
gathered the robin and the lark.

At length, having reached the edge of the woods and shut out the
gadding town, we enter within their covert as we go under the roof of a
cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow.
They are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in
summer. As we stand in the midst of the pines, in the flickering and
checkered light which straggles but little way into their maze, we
wonder if the towns have ever heard their simple story. It seems to us
that no traveler has ever explored them, and notwithstanding the
wonders which science is elsewhere revealing every day, who would not
like to hear their annals? Our humble villages in the plain are their
contribution. We borrow from the forest the boards which shelter and
the sticks which warm us. How important is their evergreen to the
winter, that portion of the summer which does not fade, the permanent
year, the unwithered grass. Thus simply and with little expense of
altitude is the surface of the earth diversified. What would human
life be without forests, those natural cities? From the tops of
mountains they appear like smooth-shaven lawns; yet whither shall we
walk but in this taller grass?

In this glade covered with bushes of a year's growth see how the
silvery dust lies on every seared leaf and twig, deposited in such
infinite and luxurious forms as by their very variety atone for the
absence of color. Observe the tiny tracks of mice around every stem,
and the triangular tracks of the rabbit. A pure elastic heaven hangs
over all, as if the impurities of the summer sky, refined and shrunk by
the chaste winter's cold, had been winnowed by the heavens upon the
earth.

Mature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens
seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and
distinct. Water turns to ice; rain to snow. The day is but a
Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.

How much more living is the life that is in nature, the furred life
which still survives the stinging nights, and, from amidst fields and
woods covered with frost and snow, sees the sun rise!

"The foodless wilds
Pour forth th