I

Light, marvellously soft yet penetrating, everywhere diffused, 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.  The forests and the mountain-bulk beyond the valley loom softly large and just distinguishable through a pearly haze.  The path is purest trackless whiteness, almost dazzling though it has no light.  This was what Dante felt when he reached the lunar sphere: 

  Parova a me, che nube ne coprisse
  Lucida, spessa, solida e pulita.

Walking silent, with insensible footfall, slowly, for the snow is deep above our ankles, we wonder what the world would be like if this were all.  Could the human race be acclimatised to this monotony (we say) perhaps emotion would be rarer, yet more poignant, suspended brooding on itself, and wakening by flashes to a quintessential mood.  Then fancy changes, and the thought occurs that even so must be a planet, not yet wholly made, nor called to take her place among the sisterhood of light and song.

III