on strange shadow shapes of shrub
and bush. The snow is piling high under the hazelbrush and the sumac,
stumps of trees become soft white mounds, and the little brook has
curving banks of beauty.

There is a thrill and an exaltation in such a storm. The depressing
influences of the earlier day are no more. As you resolutely walk
homeward through the storm and the deep snow, you feel the heart grow
strong as it pumps the blood to every fiber of your being. You know
why the men of the north, Iowa men, have virile brain and sovereign
will. The snow is deep and the way is long, but yet you smile--a
reverent smile--as you think of Hawthorne writing of a snow storm by
taking occasional peeps from the study windows of his old manse.

* * * * *

Next morning the world seems to have been re-created. It is as fresh
and pure and full of light and beauty as if it had just come from the
Creator's hand with not one single stain or shame or pain. It is one
of the few rare mornings that come in all seasons of the year when
Nature's every aspect is so beautiful that even the most
unappreciative are charmed into admiration; a great white sparkling
world below, and a limitless azure world above. The clouds have all
been blown away and you rejoice in the loftiness of the big blue dome.
It is so very high that there seems to be no dome. You are looking
straight through into the boundless blue of interstellar space, the
best object lesson of infinity which earth has to offer. The ocean
that washes the shores of continents has its bounds which it may not
pass, and mariners have well-known ways across it. The ocean of human
thought is vaster, but it, also, has finite bounds and man shall
hardly make great voyages upon it without crossing, perhaps following,
the track of some earlier Columbus. But this limitless ocean which we
call the sky has no finite bounds, no tracks, no charts, no Cabots. It
is measureless and all-embracing as Divine love. You and Polaris are
enwrapped by both. The farthest star is but a beacon light on some
shore island of this sublime sea of space; and it beckons upward and
outward to the unknown beyond.

* * * * *

Yesterday's three-mile diameter of the horizon has been multiplied by
ten. There is a far sweep of the landscape which makes the soul
thrill. This is the supreme pleasure of the prairies. The Iowa man who
goes to the Rockies is at first awed