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the spring gradually approached, the immense piles of snow, that, by alternate thaws and frosts, and repeated storms, had obtained a firmness that threatened a tiresome durability, begun to yield to the influence of milder breezes and a warmer sun. The gates of Heaven, at times, seemed to open, and a bland air diffused itself over the earth, when animate and inanimate nature would awaken, and, for a few hours, the gayety of spring shone in every eye, and smiled on every field. But the shivering blasts from the north would carry their chill influence over the scene again, and the dark and gloomy clouds that intercepted the rays of the sun, were not more cold and dreary, than the re-action which crossed the creation. These struggles between the seasons became, daily, more frequent, while the earth, like a victim to contention, slowly lost the animated brilliancy