The Kenosha telegraph and tribune. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1859-1860, 1860-01-12
A Snow SE0rsss

| The following is HenryfWard Beecher's de-
scription of snow storm -
How wonderful is the touch of nature The
air calls to the seas; and to the moist lands. and
instantly invisible particles fly upward and at
length, touched by the authority of cold, thew
OBEY It's word, and marshal themselves in clouds
and range through the heavens! Clouds drop
and sweep their skirts along the mountains;
or bank up the sun, and hide the stars from
wishtul eyes Again, at word, every drop chan
ges, shooting from its tiny centre brilliant lines
OF frost ray out, and fakes of snow seem like
gloritied forms of these raindrops No artist
soul ever thought such variety no artist finger
ever was Skilled to touch and produce such ex-
quisite things as are the SMALLEST snow flakes
Then they hang, far up in gray clouds, sus-
pended winter; fleece unshorn, But when
elected from their eyry, they come down upon
the earth, each little spickle mute and soft wa
wing like feather, what can be thought gilmore
harmless, less powerful than they A child is
mightier than any one of them. A little palm
is stretched forth, and the fake dissolves upon it
before it can be drawn back. A breath dissolves
! it. The lghtest puff of wind changes its course
and whirls it whithersoever it will The bird
directs his own fight the tiniest insect that
whlrls in gauzy maze along the evening sunset,
aims at something in its flight, and touches
what it seeks for rest. But these wandering
flakes OF snow aim at nothing, seek nothing but
! tall III Unconscious weakness, it may be upon a
rock, or upon open.faced pools, or into the forge
and chimney or caught by some side wind,
they are whirled ina white obscurity, and made
crazy with haste, and pitched into dark gorges
Or lifted into caves or let fall upon the boughS
and quierving fingers of the pine, pluming again
with white its green plumes that sigh all
summer, and mourn all winter.
Surely, of all things that are, snow is the
most beautiful, and the most feeblel Born of
air-drops less than the fallen dew, di sorganized
by puff of warmth, driven whittier by the least
motion Of the Winds each particle light and soft,
and falling to the earth with such noiseless gem
tleness that the wings of ten million times ten
million make no sound in the air, and the foot
fall of thrice as many makes no noise upon the
ground, what can be more helpless, poweress,
harmless
But not the thunder itself speaks Gods power
more than this very snow. 1t bears his omnip-
otence, soft and beautiful as it seems While
it is yet in the air, it is lord of the ocean and
the prares. Ships are blinded by it. All har-
bors are silent under this pushy embargo. The
! traveller hides. The praries are given up TO its
behest and woe to him that dares to venture
against the omnipotence OF soft falling snow up.
| on those tracIless wastes In one night it hides
the engineering of a hundred years. 1t covers
down roads, hides bridges, fills up valleys. 1t
torblds the hocks to return TO the fields. The
| plow cannot find its burrows, Towns and viii
lagos yield up the earth, and obey this white
diffusve despot
Then, when it has given the earth new sur
face, and changed all vehicles 1t submits itself
again to the uses of man, and becomes his SER
want, in its age, whom it ruled and defed in the
hour OF its birth. But when fake is Joined to
flake, and the frosts within the soil join their
forces to the frosts descended from The clouds,
who shall unlock their clasped hands? Who
shall disannul their agreement? Or who shall
ldispossess them of their place? Gathered in
the mountains banked and piled till they touch
the very clouds again in which once they were
born and rocked how terrible is their cold, and
more terrible Their stroke, when, slipping, some
avalanche comes down the mountain side, the
roar and the snow-stroke loud as thunder, and
as terrible as lightning God gives to the silent
snow voice, and clothes its innocence and
weakness with power ike his own
But, behold again That august might that
buried the fields, that shut up husbandry and
drove back from the fields its herds, that wound
the very wilderness with burial-sheet, and sat
watchful over all its work from the tops Of noun
tains, defying men, and storms even. which,
when once enthroned, could not move nor change
its mighty power-that very might, when God
lpleases, shall go, quick and silent it
came When God remembers the earth from
thr south and his breath returns again, warm
and life-giving, in an instant the snow goes back
to its former state. Its fakes die to drops of
dew, and the field drinks up the depths and
banks that hid its face and the ice and snow
that sat silent on tie hills, now sing down the
brooks and rills propf etS of the coming flowers