Our thoroughfares, our promenades, even in those dreary months, when the northern blast howls over the Canadian landscape, have some blithsome gleams of sunshine. Never shall we forget one bright, frosty January afternoon, about four o'clock, in the year 1872, when solitary, though not sad, standing on Durham [80] Terrace, was unveiled to us "a most magnificent picture, a scene of glorified nature painted by the hand of the Creator. The setting sun had charged the skies with all its gorgeous heraldry of purple and crimson and gold, and the tints were diffused and reflected through fleecy clouds, becoming softer and richer through expansion. The mountain tops, wood-crowned, where the light and shadow appeared to be struggling for mastery, stood out in relief from the white plain, and stretching away in indistinct, dreamy distances finally seemed to blend with the painted skies. The ice-covered bay was lit up with glowing shades, in contrast with the deep blue of the clear water beyond; from which the island rose, and into which the point jutted with grand picturesqueness; the light played through the frost-adorned, but still sombre pines, and spread out over deserted fields. Levis and the south shore received not so much of the illumination, and the grimness of the Citadel served as a contrast and a relief to the eye bewildered with the unaccustomed grandeur. But as the sun sank deeper behind the eternal hills, shadows began to fall, and the bright colours toned down to the grey of dusk, stars shone out, the grey was chased away, and the azure, diamond-dotted skies told not of the glory of sunset which had so shortly before suffused them."--(_Morning Chronicle_.)