its light, and to the
traveller coming on, enveloped in his breath, the whole place shines like
a congregation of glow-worms. A pleasant enough sight to him if his home
be there! At this present season, the canal is not such a pleasant
promenade as it was in summer. The barges come and go as usual, but at
this time I do not envy the bargemen quite so much. The horse comes
smoking along; the tarpaulin which covers the merchandise is sprinkled
with hoar-frost; and the helmsman, smoking his short pipe for the mere
heat of it, cowers over a few red cinders contained in a framework of
iron. The labour of the poor fellows will soon be over for a time; for
if this frost continues, the canal will be sheathed in a night, and next
day stones will be thrown upon it, and a daring urchin venturing upon it
will go souse head over heels, and run home with his teeth in a chatter;
and the day after, the lake beneath the old castle will be sheeted, and
the next, the villagers will be sliding on its gleaming face from ruddy
dawn at nine to ruddy eve at three; and hours later, skaters yet
unsatisfied will be moving ghost-like in the gloom--now one, now another,
shooting on sounding irons into a clear space of frosty light, chasing
the moon, or the flying image of a star! Happy youths leaning against
the frosty wind!

I am a Christian, I hope, although far from a muscular one--consequently
I cannot join the skaters on the lake. The floor of ice, with the people
upon it, will be but a picture to me. And, in truth, it is in its
pictorial aspect that I chiefly love the bleak season. As an artist,
winter can match summer any day. The heavy, feathery flakes have been
falling all the night through, we shall suppose, and when you get up in
the morning the world is draped in white. What a sight it is! It is the
world you knew, but yet a different one. The familiar look has gone, and
another has taken its place; and a not unpleasant puzzlement arises in
your mind, born of the patent and the remembered aspect. It reminds you
of a friend who has been suddenly placed in new circumstances, in whom
there is much that you recognise, and much that is entirely strange. How
purely, divinely white when the last snowflake has just fallen! How
exquisite and virginal the repose! It touches you like some perfection
of music. And winter does not work only on a broad scale; he is careful
in trifles. Pluck a single ivy leaf from the old wall, and s