Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/233

Rh place where the woodchoppers had had a fire. These myriad shadows checker the white ground and enhance the brightness of the enlightened portions. See the shadows of these young oaks which have lost half their leaves, more beautiful than the trees themselves, like the shadow of a chandelier, and motionless as fallen leaves on the snow; but shake the tree, and all is in motion.

In this stillness and at this distance I hear the nine o'clock bell in Bedford, five miles off, which I might never hear in the village; but here its music surmounts the village din and has something very sweet and noble and in spiring in it, associated in fact with the hooting of owls.

Returning, I thought I heard the creaking of a wagon, just starting from Hubbard's door, and rarely musical it sounded. It was the Telegraph harp. It began to sound at one spot only. It is very fitful, and only sounds when it is in the mood. You may go by twenty times both when the wind is high and when it is low, and let it blow which way it will, and yet hear no strain from it. But at another time, at a particular spot, you may hear a strain rising and swelling on the string, which may at last ripen to something glorious. The wire will perhaps labor long with it before it attains to melody.