everywhere reflected without radiance, poured from the moon high above
our heads in a sky tinted through all shades and modulations of blue,
from turquoise on the horizon to opaque sapphire at the zenith--_dolce
color_. (It is difficult to use the word _colour_ for this scene
without suggesting an exaggeration. The blue is almost indefinable,
yet felt. But if possible, the total effect of the night landscape
should be rendered by careful exclusion of tints from the
word-palette. The art of the etcher is more needed than that of the
painter.) Heaven overhead is set with stars, shooting intensely,
smouldering with dull red in Aldeboran, sparkling diamond-like in
Sirius, changing from orange to crimson and green in the swart fire of
yonder double star. On the snow this moonlight falls tenderly, not in
hard white light and strong black shadow, but in tones of cream and
ivory, rounding the curves of drift. The mountain peaks alone glisten
as though they were built of silver burnished by an agate. Far away
they rise diminished in stature by the all-pervading dimness of bright
light, that erases the distinctions of daytime. On the path before our
feet lie crystals of many hues, the splinters of a thousand gems. In
the wood there are caverns of darkness, alternating with spaces of
star-twinkled sky, or windows opened between russet stems and solid
branches for the moony sheen. The green of the pines is felt, although
invisible, so soft in substance that it seems less like velvet than
some materialised depth of dark green shadow.

II

Snow falling noiseless and unseen. One only knows that it is falling
by the blinking of our eyes as the flakes settle on their lids and
melt. The cottage windows shine red, and moving lanterns of belated
wayfarers define the void around them. Yet the night is far from dark.