The evergreens were bowed heavily with the weight of the snow, and
across the wood path birches and various trees bent as if in prayer,
obstructing the way. The clear air, which was not very cold--for it was
one of those subdued days of winter, when the glare of the sun was
obstructed by a cloudy mantle--the intense quiet, the strong contrasts
of the dark trunks of trees with the heavy evergreens, and the
immaculate purity of whiteness laid on by the greatest and sublimest
painter were so marked and so lovely that I seemed to be drinking the
nectar of the god of beauty, and was soul-subdued.
Up to the Eyry in the evening, I went with others to hear the singing,
when Mary, "the nightingale,"--as we sometimes called her--came. I went
often and stayed long. Some were at the Hive, reading; some were,
perhaps, engaged in Shakespeare; some in their rooms with their
families; some at the Cottage practising the piano, and all "following
their attractions," to use our common phrase, in their own little
sphere--whether it was reading the papers and journals of the day in
the improvised reading-room at the Hive, or commenting on the last
articles in the _Harbinger,_ or doing a little work out of hours
for amusement or profit, or attending one of the interminable number of
meetings for consultation and arrangement held almost nightly.
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