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National Geographic : 1920 Feb
Contents
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE A BIRD'S NEST WITH ITS "SNOWY EGG" During his winter walks Thoreau always took keen delight in discovering any reminder of the past summer, even if it was only a deserted bird's nest filled with snow. journey to Concord to witness and enjoy the same phenomena. All through the northern portion of the United States, ex cept upon the Pacific coast, there is an nually staged upon the platform of winter the same drama of wonder and beauty which so aroused his admiration. Indeed, in certain sections there some times occur spectacular effects of which Thoreau never witnessed anything more than the merest suggestion, such as the brilliant "sun-dogs," "inverted rainbows," and kindred atmospheric phenomena which frequently accompany days of in tense cold in Minnesota and North Da kota. Also, in connection with many of the higher waterfalls of the northern States, there are superb displays of frost magic, such as that which annually draws a throng of visitors to Niagara, far tran scending in magnitude and beauty any thing which Thoreau ever saw on his winter visits to the tiny waterfalls of Concord. But the ordinary aspects of winter, so familiar to all who dwell in regions peri- odically visited by the Ice King, Thoreau has made the subject of graphic descrip tion. The snow crystals falling upon his coat sleeve, the icy fretwork on the pud dle by the roadside, the "booming" of the pond on cold evenings, the snow-encased pump, the farmer piloting his ox-sled through the drifts, the lisping of chick adees among the snow-laden hemlocks. the fisherman with his string of pickerel caught through the ice, the close-wrapped buds of trees and shrubs, the humming of the telegraph "harp," the snow-bunt ings and tree-sparrows-"true spirits of the snowstorm," the red alder catkins "switching in the face of winter and bragging for all creation," the woodchop per and his noonday lunch, the scream of the blue-jay-"a sort of wintry trumpet," the snow-fleas in the wheel-ruts, the frost-tracery on the window pane-all these and many other incidents and phe nomena of the winter are faithfully and lovingly recorded. Trivial matters? Yes, and yet they are so charmingly treated in Thoreau's inter pretation of "that grand old poem called winter" that we forget their trivial and commonplace character and are made to see how much they contribute toward the beauty and the harmony of the whole. NEW PICTURES PAINTED AT EACH SUNSET There is one very common phenome non of the winter time-a daily occur rence, in fact-which Thoreau dwells upon with marked frequency and always in a mood of special exaltation. To him, in all seasons of the year, the holiest hour of the day was the hour of the set ting sun, and in the winter season its ap peal was most potent. Under date of January 7, 1852, he wrote: "I go forth each afternoon and look into the west a quarter of an hour before sunset, with fresh curiosity, to see what new picture will be painted there, what new panorama exhibited, what new dissolving views. Can Washington Street or Broadway show anything as good? Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls." 180
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