Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/391

Rh snow first where there is some shade, as where the shadow of a maple falls afar over the ice and snow. From this is reflected a purple tinge when I see none elsewhere. Some shadow or twilight then is necessary, umbra mixed with the reflected sun. Off Holden wood where the low rays fall on the river through the fringe of the wood, the patches are not rose color, but a very dark purple, like a grape, and thus there are all degrees from pure white to black. As I cross Hubbard's broad meadow, the snow patches are a most beautiful crystalline purple, like the petals of some flowers, or as if tinged with cranberry juice.

I walk over a smooth green sea or æquor, the sun just disappearing in the cloudless horizon, amid thousands of these flat isles as purple as the petals of a flower. It would not be more enchanting to walk amid the purple clouds of the sunset sky. And, by the way, this is but a sunset sky under our feet, produced by the same law, the same slanting rays and twilight. Here the clouds are these patches of snow or frozen vapor, and the ice is the greenish sky between them. Thus all of heaven is realized on earth. You have seen those purple, fortunate isles in the sunset heavens, and that green and amber sky between them. Would you believe that you could ever walk amid those isles? You can on