constancy. A child welcomes it as an answer to its own soul, with its
mystery and transparency, its bounded lawlessness, its love of earth
and its echoes of the sky. In winter our brook had a new charm: it ran
beneath a roof of ice, often mounded with snow; its voice sounding
cheerful as ever in those inscrutable caverns, as if it discoursed
secret wonders of fairy-land, and carried treasures of the elves and
gnomes. Zero, with his utmost rigors, could not still its speech for a
day or fix his grip upon those elastic limbs. Indeed, the frosty god
conspired with it for our delight; building crystal bridges, with
tracery of lace delicater than Valenciennes, and spangled
string-pieces, and fretted vaultings, whimsical sierras, stalactite
and stalagmite. An icicle is one of those careless toys of nature
which the decorative art of man imitates in vain. They are among the
myriad decorations of children's palaces.

To Tanglewood, as we called it, at all seasons of the year, came
Hawthorne and his wife and children. In spring there was the issuing
forth of the new life from beneath the winter coverlid; the first
discovery of sociable houstonias, and the exquisite tints and
fragrance of the mayflower on its dark, bearded stalk. When June
became perfect, and afterwards till nuts were ripe, my father loved to
lie at full length upon the mossy and leaf-strewn floor, looking up at
the green roof, the lofty whispering-gallery of vaulted boughs, with
its azure lattices and descending sunlight-shafts; wrapped in
imaginings some of which were afterwards to delight the world; but
many more of them, no doubt, were fated to join the glorious company
of untold tales. Beside him sat our mother, on a throne which we had
fashioned for her from the upright stump of a tree; round about them
played the little girl and boy. They brought all the treasures which
this wonderfully affluent world afforded: flowers in all seasons;