Stern Dweller Of The Wild!
Nature's Free-Born, Untamed, And Daring Child!
The clouds of the preceding night, instead of dissolving in snow,
brought on a rapid thaw.
A thaw in the middle of winter is the most
disagreeable change that can be imagined. After several weeks of
clear, bright, bracing, frosty weather, with a serene atmosphere and
cloudless sky, you awake one morning surprised at the change in the
temperature; and, upon looking out of the window, behold the woods
obscured by a murky haze - not so dense as an English November fog,
but more black and lowering - and the heavens shrouded in a uniform
covering of leaden-coloured clouds, deepening into a livid indigo at
the edge of the horizon. The snow, no longer hard and glittering,
has become soft and spongy, and the foot slips into a wet and
insidiously-yielding mass at every step. From the roof pours down a
continuous stream of water, and the branches of the trees collecting
the moisture of the reeking atmosphere, shower it upon the earth
from every dripping twig. The cheerless and uncomfortable aspect of
things without never fails to produce a corresponding effect upon
the minds of those within, and casts such a damp upon the spirits
that it appears to destroy for a time all sense of enjoyment. Many
persons (and myself among the number) are made aware of the approach
of a thunder-storm by an intense pain and weight about the head; and
I have heard numbers of Canadians complain that a thaw always made
them feel bilious and heavy, and greatly depressed their animal
spirits.
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