Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1881-03-17
SNOW.
FROM the Chicago Tribune.

author of the poem aforesaid became
very enthusiastic on the subject and
INDUCED in much ill-considered, ex-
travagant praise of snowilakes, fully
justifying 1ocke's remark that EN-
thusiam is founded neither on reason
or divine revelation, but rises from the
conceits of warmed or overweeDing
imagination" Poets are not usually
highly gifted in the manner Of COM
mon sense, but our snow eulogist
knew enough to conceal his or her
name from the public, The poem has
been much admired in summer time,
with the thermometer above 80 de-
greea, by perspiring, suilocating NOR
tails and upon these occasions many
would-be literary thieves have pre-
ierred claim TO its authorship But
the rogues have never been believed.
The public have waited rather impa-
tiently for somebody of the Spartan
type of character to appear in mid.
winter, with the thermometer at 40
degrees below zero, and file claim TO
the authorship of "The Beautiful
Snow" 1t were better, however, for
that man or woman that he or she had
never been born. The public are
looking for that author now; they
want to snow him in; they agonize to
bury him under tons Of his beautiful
snow" they want to hold him face TO
the storm until he is CONCEALED into an
icicle they want TO plunge his good
right hand in the deep, deep snow and
hold it there until the pen with which
he indited so many beautiful lies
about "the beautiful snow" drops from
his nerveless fingers, frozen stiff as
marlin-spike; they want to imprison
him in n snowhouse without n roof and
feed him on icicles, and snowhakcs.
and snowbanks, and snowballs. The
railway men want TO lash him to Il
snow-plow, and, putting on all steam,
plunge him, hcad.forcmUst, at sixty
miles an hour, into the deepest snow
drift between the two oceans. The
beautiful snow, indecd Does any
man court martyrdOm! Let him an.
nouncc himself a. the author Of one
line, good. bad, or indifferent, in culo.
gy Of the crystalIizcd vapor called
snow, and he will speedily become
food for worms
Mcteorologists, it is said, distinguish
by means of the microscope six hun
dred varieties Of crystals ofsuow, some
of which. it is pretended, are extreme.
ly beautiful. In an ordinary winter
season not more than fifty or hun
drcd varieties of the snow crystal ex-
hibit themselves to mortals In this
year Of grace, 1881, every variety
known to the meteorologists has al
ready made it, appearance. and there
is good reason to expect a record of
new discoveries to the extent Of .sev-
eral hundred fresh specimens. Poets
and scientists may delight to magnify
snow crystal with n view 10 detect
new manifestations of the beautiful,
but We tremble for the fate of that
rash man who is detected in the act
of magnifying snowdrifts during the
month of March, 1881. Imagine the
righteous indignation of the pedestrian
wading through three feet Of snow,
who by chance encounters a meteorol.
ogist in the act of magnifying the
drift in his path hundred.fold in the
effort to discover a new variety Of
snow crystal? Let him beware of the
wrath of that pedestrian with his
mouth, ears, eyes, and nose full Of the
"watery particles CONCEALED into white
crystals" Ii we're better for the fool
ish meteorologist that a milestone
we're hanged about his neck aud he
were cast into the sea"
"As chaste as snow" is a favorite
simile of the poets. Nothing could be
more absurd. Does not every crystal
of it "fall2' And it no sooner falls
than it is stained by every base con.
tact--a vile thing to be trodden under
foot of men. It's coldness is a mere
pretense. At the very first tempta.
ton it melts, and then, disgraced and
shamed, il hides its guilty head in the
dust of the earth. THE beautiful
snow" of which the poet sings so rap
turously is as cruel as the grave. 1t
penetrates thousand crevices in the
abodes of poverty, chilling their thin.
ly clad inmates-half fed children,
with bare legs and arms, huddled
about scanty fires in wretched novels.
and old men with pinehed faces and
white hairs clothed in rags, crouching
in the far corners of fireless attics. In
mockery of suffering and misery the
beautiful CD snow crystals, reduced to
fine dust like grains Of sand, steal on
the wings of the wind into leaky tene-
ments, spread themselves noiselessly
over the carpe.less floors, and as noise
lessly drift into heaps on the rude fur
niture. Beautiful snow, indeed II
is rather an angel of wrath whose