The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on
spots of this kind than amid woodland scenery. Still,
to a close observer, they are just as perceptible; the
difference is that their media of manifestation are less
trite and familiar than such well-known ones as the
bursting of the buds or the fall of the leaf. Many are
not so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to
imagine in considering the general torpidity of a moor
or waste. Winter, in coming to the country hereabout,
advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have
been successively observed the retreat of the snakes,
the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools,
a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse
of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.
This climax of the series had been reached to-night on
the aforesaid moor, and for the first time in the season
its irregularities were forms without features; suggestive
of anything, proclaiming nothing, and without more
character than that of being the limit of something
else -- the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From
this chaotic skyful of crowding flakes the mead and
moor momentarily received additional clothing, only
to appear momentarily more naked thereby.
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