January was a month of storms, and often did we contrast its desolations with the excitement of a summer Assembly, but such was our satisfaction with the present that we were in no haste for a change. The wild, weird elements of the season interested us; the opportunity afforded for reading, rest and recuperation was what was needed, and we felt that these things could not be too long continued. What, have the beautiful lake ice-locked for months, and used as a public highway? Listen day and night to the moaning and howling of the winds as they swept through the branches of the naked trees, often threatening to tear them up by the roots? Live weeks together without sight of the sun by day, or of a star by night? Yes, for all these things accorded with each other, and with the general aspect of nature. The music was of a _class_, and each note was in harmony with the general movement of the grand anthem. When nature had savagely arrayed itself in frost and snow and cloud and tempest, hiding the earth and filling the heavens, had the sun put in an appearance what a ghastly display would it have made! But in the midst of this desolation the snow-birds appeared, and they were beautiful, for they were the flowers of the season. We realized that the power of harmony could be heard in a tempest as well as in a seraph’s song. It is the extreme of folly to waste a winter watching for the coming of spring. The soul that is free from shams and is a pure part of nature itself, is attuned to the real and the true, and accepts the nature that is as the best, and would resolutely resist a change. Our snow storm continued about twenty-eight days, and its coming was heralded by the play of lightning and the music of thunder. It never ceased to be a pleasure to watch the falling of the snow; to see the curiously wrought crystals drift out of the sky down among the branches of the trees, filling the air till it seemed mantled in white—a new creation. As an aid to the expression of our feelings we read the poem of Emerson. We quote a few lines: “Come see the north wind’s masonry, Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof. Round every windward stake, or tree, or door, Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly On coop, or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths. A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn, Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work, And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone Built in an age, the mad wind’s night work The frolic architecture of the snow.”