[Illustration: “Coming up the Trail toward the Daylight.”] IN THE CHRISTMAS WOODS _Being the introductory essay of a series on observations of nature through the year_ BY ADELINE KNAPP Author of “Upland Pastures,” Etc. With an illustration by William Keith DONE AT THE PRESS OF THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 1899 Copyright, 1899, by THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY. RAIN UP THE MOUNTAIN. Along the serried slopes a white shape creeps, Through oak-fringed cañon ways, and up the steeps, A mystery of silent, shrouding deeps; Like spirit touching earth while Nature sleeps. It stirs beneath the laurels, stirs within The redwood’s circling shade, and light and thin, Where the brown towhee builds, and spiders spin, Shuts the twist manzanita’s tangle in. With swaying tops and quivering leaves adart, Held for a while within the mist’s white heart Like shadowy travelers ready to depart— Tall, wavering shapes of eucalyptus start. From far below, where level spreads the plain; Traveling with jeweled feet the hastening grain, Touching the slumbering hills to life again, Marching along the summits, comes the rain! _OF BEAUTY._ _We ought to observe that even the things that follow after the things which are produced according to nature contain something pleasing and attractive.... The ears of corn bending down, and the lion’s eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other things—tho they are far from being beautiful if a man should examine them severally—still, because they are consequent upon the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the universe, there is hardly one of those which follow by way of consequence, which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.... And in an old woman and an old man he will be able to see a certain maturity and comeliness, and the attractive beauty of young persons he will be able to look upon with chaste eyes, who has become truly familiar with nature and her works._ _MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS._ IN THE CHRISTMAS WOODS.