Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-01
WORLD FAMOUS STORIES
SNOW FLAKES
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1so4-1se4, was an
9 Amstrican writer 81 r1mances ana short
HOUSE Of T ths Seven CABLES. ri hsriet
Letter." etc.
There is snow in yonder cold gray sky
Of the morning. And through the par
TALLY frosted window panes I love to
watch the gradual beginning of the
storm. A few feathery fakes are scat
tered widely through the air. and hover
downward with uncertain fight, now al
most alighting on the earth, now whirlcd
again aloft into remote regions OF the
atmosphere. These are not the big
flakes. heavy with moisture. which melt
as they touch the ground, and are por-
tentous of a soaking rain.
It Is to be, In good earnest, WintrJ
storm. The two or three people visible
on the sidewalks have an aspect of en-
durance, a blue-nosed, frosty fortitude,
which Is evidently assumed in anticipa-
ton of comfortless and clustering cay.
BY nightfall, or at least before the sun
sheds another glimmering smile upon US,
the street and our little garden will be
heaped with mountain snowdrifts. The
soil, already frozen for week past, IS pre-
pared to sustain whatever burden may
be laid upon it, and, TO a Northern eye.
the landscape will lose its melancholy
bleakneSS and acquire q beauty Of its
own when Mother Earth, like her chill
dren, shall have put on the fieecy garb
Of her Winters wear.
The cloud spirits are slowly weaving
her white mantle. AS yet, indeed, there
Is barely rime like boar frost over the
brown surface of the street; the with
cred green Of the grass plat is still dis
cernible and the slated roofs of the
houses do but begin to look gray, instead
Of black. All the snow that has yet
fallen within the circumference OF my
view, were it heaped up together, would
hardly equal the hillock OF grave.
Thus gradually, by silent and stealthy
influences are great changes wrought.
These little snow particles. which the
storm spirit filings by handouts through
the air, will bury the great earth under
their accumulated mass, nor permit her
to behold her sister sky again for dresry
months. We, likewise, shall lose sight Of
our mothers familiar viSage. and must
content ourselves with looking heaven
ward the oftener.
Slow but sure! The storm spirit has
the day perchanee the week, before him,
and may take his own time to accom-
plish natures burial in snow. A smooth
mantle is scarcely yet thrown over the
withered SraSS-plat, and the dry stalks OF
ANIMALS still thrust themselves through
the white surface in all parts Of the
garden. The leafieSS rose bushes stand
shivering In shallow snow-drift, look
ing, poor things, as disconSolate as II
they possessed q human consciousness Of
the dreary scene. This Is q sad time for
the shrubs that do not perish with the
Summer; they neither live nor die;
what they retain OF life seems but the
chilling sense Of death. Very sad are
the flower shrubs In Midwinter.
The roofs of the houses are now all
white, save where the eddying wind has
kept them bare at the bleak corners. To
discern the real intensity of the storm
We must flx up some distant objectS-aS
Wonder Spire--and observe how the riot
Gus gust fights with the descending
snow throughout the intervening space
Sometimes the entire prospect Is OBJ
Scured: then. again, We have 9 distinct
but transient glimpse of the tall steeple,
like a giants ghost; and now the dense
wreathS sweep between, as II demons
we're flinging snow-drifts at each other
in mid-air
Look next into the street, where we
have an amusing parallel to the COM
bat of those fancied demons in the
upper regions. 1t is a Snow-battle OF
schoolboys. What pretty satire on war
and military glory might be written, in