The San Francisco call., 1908-12-26

Following the Equators1 and compar-
ing 1t favorably with the natural
beauties of other lands more famous
than our own for such possessions. He
says:
In America the ice storm is an
one is careless about. When it comes
the news flies from room to room liz
the house. there are bangings on the
doors, and shoutings, The ice storm.
The ice storm! and even the LATEST
sleepers throw off the covers and join
in the rush for the windows. The ice
storm occurs in midwinter, and usually
its enchantments are wrought in the
silence and darkness of the night. A
fine drizzling rain falls hour after hour
upon the naked twigs and branches OF
the trees, and as it falls it freezes. In
time the trunk and every branch and
twig are incased in hard, pure Ice; so
that the tree looks like a skeleton.
Tree all made of glass-glass
that is crystal clear. All along
glass that is crystal clear. All along
the under side of every branch and
twig is a comb of little icicles-the
frozen drip. Sometimes these pendants
do not quite amount to icicles, but are
round beads-frozen tears.
THE weather clears toward dawn,
and leaves brisk, pure atmosphere
and sky without a shred of cloud in
it-and everything is still, theresis not
a breath of wind. The dawn breaks
and spreads, the news OF the storm
goes about the house, and the little and
the big, wrapped in blankets, flock to
the window and press together there,
and gaze intently out upon the great
white ghost in the grounds. and nobody
says a word, nobody stirs. All are
waiting; they know. what is coming,
and they are waiting-waiting for the
miracle. The minutes drift on and on,
without a sound but the ticking of the
clock; at last the sun fires a sudden
sheaf of rays into the ghostly tree
and turns it into white splendor of
glittering diamonds. Everybody catches
his breath, and feels swelling in his
throat and a moisture in his eyes-but
waits again; for he knows what is
coming; there is more yet.
''The sun climbs higher, and still
higher; flooding the tree from its loft
lest spread of branches to its lowest,
turning it into a glory of white fire;
then in a moment, without warning,
comes the great miracle, the supreme
miracle, the miracle without its fellow
In the earth; a gust OF wind sets every
branch and twig to swaying, and in an
instant turns the whole white tree into
a spouting and spraying explosion of
flashing gems Of every conceivable
color.
VISION OF FIRE
"And there it stands and sways, this
way and thati flash fash! FASH a
dancing and glancing world of rubies,
emeralds. diamonds, sapphires. the
most radiant spectacle, the most blind
ing spectacle, the divinest, the most ex-
quisite, the most Intoxicating vision Of
fire and color and intolerable and un-
imaginable splendor that ever any eye
has rested upon in this world or ever
will rest upon outside the gates of
heaven.
by all my senses, all my faculties.
I know that the ice storm is natures
supremest achievement in the domain
of the superb and the beautiful. Every
one of the myriad ice beads pendent
from twig and branch is an individual
gem, and changes color with every
motion caused by the wind; each tree
carries a million, and a forest front
exhibits the splendors of the single tree
multiplied by thousand"