. Through the year with Thoreau . han anotter. Why do the vast snow plains give us pleasure,the twilight of the bent and half-buried woods? Isnot all there consonant with virtue, justice, purity,courage, magnanimity. Are we not cheered by And does not all this amount to the track of ahigher life than the otters, a life which has not goneby and left a footprint merely, but is there with itsbeauty, its music, its perfume, its sweetness, to ex-hilarate and recreate us. Where there is a perfectgovernment of the world according to the highestlaws, is there no trace of intelligence there,
. Through the year with Thoreau . han anotter. Why do the vast snow plains give us pleasure,the twilight of the bent and half-buried woods? Isnot all there consonant with virtue, justice, purity,courage, magnanimity. Are we not cheered by And does not all this amount to the track of ahigher life than the otters, a life which has not goneby and left a footprint merely, but is there with itsbeauty, its music, its perfume, its sweetness, to ex-hilarate and recreate us. Where there is a perfectgovernment of the world according to the highestlaws, is there no trace of intelligence there, whetherin the snow or the earth, or in ourselves? No othertrail but such as a dog can smell? Is there none whichan angel can detect and follow? None to guide a manon his pilgrimage, which water will not conceal? Isthere no odor of sanctity to be perceived? Is its trailtoo old? Have mortals lost the scent? The great gamefor mighty hunters as soon as the first snow falls isPurity, for, earlier than any rabbit or fox, it is abroad,. : 119 ] and its trail may be detected by curs of lowest de-gree. Did this great snow come to reveal the trackmerely of some timorous hare, or of the Great Hare,whose track no hunter has seen? Is there no tracenor suggestion of Purity to be detected? If one coulddetect the meaning of the snow, would he not be onthe trail of some higher life that has been abroad inthe night? A life which, pursued, does not earth it-self, does not burrow downward but upward, whichtakes not to the trees but to the heavens as its home,which the hunter pursues with winged thoughts andaspirations, — these the dogs that tree it, — rally-ing his pack with the bugle notes of undying faith,and returns with some worthier trophy than a foxstail, a life which we seek, not to destroy it, but to saveour own? Journal, vi, 43, 44. [ 120 ^ AFTER THE ICE STORM i January 1, 1853. This morning we have some-thing between ice and frost on the trees, etc. Thewhole earth, as last night, bu
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