her hand the of my bosom � an of a little girl addressed to an imaginary child the wind turn the lightning catch a child s phrases for and lightning rod where s the man mountain of these cried a little boy as he looked at a small of the getting into the wooden horse when the sun shines brightly on the new snow we discover of hills miles away towards the south which we have never seen before to have the north pole for a fishing pole and the line for a fishing line if we consider the lives of the lower animals we shall see in them a close to those of mortals � by v ic american note books toil struggle danger mingled with glimpses of peace and ease enmity affection a continual hope of themselves although their objects lie at less distance before them than ours can do thus no argument for the imperfect character of our existence and its promises and its apparent injustice can be drawn in reference to our immortality without in a degree being to our brute brethren february m � a walk across the lake with a heavy rain some days ago has melted a good deal of the snow on the intervening descent between our house and the lake but many depths and yet remain and there is a frozen crust sufficient to bear a man s weight and very slippery the slopes there are tiny which exist only for the winter bare brown spaces of grass here and there but still so as only to the scene a little in the woods rocks emerging and where there is a slope immediately towards the lake the snow is pretty much gone and we see frozen and outer shells of and chestnut heaped or scattered among the roots of the trees the mark the place where the boys after sat down to clear the of their outer shell the various species of look exceedingly brown just now � less beautiful than those trees which shed their leaves an oak tree with almost all its brown foliage still rustling on it we down the bank and step upon the frozen lake it was snow covered for a considerable time but the rain it with a surface of water or imperfectly by v ic american note books melted snow which is now hard frozen again and the having been frequently below i suppose the ice may be four or five feet thick frequently there are great cracks across it caused i suppose by the air beneath and giving an idea of greater firmness than if there were no cracks round holes which have been in the marble pavement by and are now frozen over again looking darker than the rest of the surface spaces where the snow was more imperfectly dissolved than elsewhere little spots where a thin surface of ice over the real mass beneath one s foot the track of a line of footsteps most of them vaguely formed but some quite perfectly where a person passed across the lake while its surface was in a state of but which are now as hard as and remind one of the traces discovered by in rocks that hardened thousands of ages ago it seems as if the person passed when the lake was in an state between ice and water in one spot some pine boughs which somebody had cut and heaped there for an unknown purpose in the centre of the lake we see the surrounding hills in a new attitude this being a basin in the midst of them where they are covered with wood the aspect is gray or black then there are bare slopes of unbroken snow the outlines and being much more hardly and firmly defined than in summer we went southward across the lake directly towards monument mountain which as i said like a its and are very evident and it does not present a smooth and placid front as when the grass is by v ic note books green and the trees in leaf at one end too we are sensible of black and shaggy with the forest that is likely always to grow there and in one streak a headlong sweep downward of snow we just set our feet on the farther shore and then immediately returned facing the wind which blew very sharply against us after landing we came homeward up the little brook so far as it lay in our course it was considerably swollen and rushed on its course between overhanging banks of snow and ice from which depended the httle with which we had it in the summer and autumn could do no more than form a large ripple so much greater was the volume of water in some places the crust of frozen snow made a bridge quite over the brook that you only knew it was there by its sound beneath the of winter are splendid and when the ground is covered with snow no brilliancy of tint by ds can come within an infinite distance of the effect our southern view at that time with the clouds and hues is quite indescribable and and the various distances of the hills which lie between us and the remote dome of are brought out with an accuracy in summer the of the air at this season has the effect of a in bringing objects apparently near while it leaves the scene all its breadth the sunset sky amidst its splendor has a softness and delicacy that impart themselves to a white marble world by v american note books february m � a walk yesterday afternoon with tbe children a bright and rather cold day from the north and westward there has been a good deal of rain lately and it has in great measure cleared hills and of snow only it may be seen lying in spots and on 