January 29. I believe that letter-writing is more of a reality to me now than conversation; short though my notes are, I can speak thus to those who need me, and whom I need. Repose of character, and the power of forgetting, are great compensations for a tried, hurried, and worried life. And there is, in all but the most unusual lives, something like this, which enables people to laugh at care, and triumph over grief; though it is never perfectly done, except by a thorough trust in the goodness of God,--a faith in the watching love. February 5. I did have the sleigh-ride with my young friends, as I expected, and a merry one it was. We just whirled through Attleboro, and back again. All I remember of the ride is the icicles that hung on the orchard trees and, just at sunset, the tints that fell on a slope of unstained snow. They were the softest, coolest shades of blue and violet, with here and there a suggestion of rose or crimson, a perfectly magical combination of shadow colors, only half escaped from their white light-prison of the snow. It was a hint of the beauty of an Alpine or a Polar landscape, such as travelers tell about. The young moon followed one queenly star down the west, as we returned, with a song of “Glory Hallelujah,” and “Homeward Bound.” February 6. The clear blue of this morning’s sky has melted into a mass of snowy clouds, and now earth and sky are of the same hue,--white--white,--the purest crystalline snow is on the ground, and more is coming. The violet hues in the north at sunrise and sunset are very beautiful. I am glad I took my walk in the woods this morning while the sky was bright; there are fine tints there always on the trees, various browns of withered oaks and beech-leaves, still persistent, and leaning against the stout pine trunks, that hold up their constant green to the sky. Two trees I noticed for the first time, a pine and a maple, which have grown up with their trunks in close union, almost one from infancy. One keeps his dark green mantle on, the other has lost her light summer robe, but is covered all over with the softest clinging lichens, that contrast their pale green tints with the white-gray bark in a charming way. When snow falls on these lichen-draped boughs, the softness of the white above and the white below is wonderful. I think Neck-woods is a grand studio; when weary of my own white walls I can always find refreshment there. February 7. The news of Sarah Paine’s death overwhelms me,--so young, so sensitive, so genial and accomplished; she seemed made to enter deeply into the reality and beauty of an earthly life. No pupil of mine has ever yet come near me in so many ways to sympathize and gladden as she. Only a few weeks since, we walked together in the woods, so full of life and hope she was; and now, in a moment,--but why this sorrow, since she is but suddenly called home to deeper love and purer life?