ON St Stephen’s Day we drove in sledges to a country house. I feasted my eyes on a wonderful sight—high trees standing between the white ground and the great sun, and casting strange shadows on the whitest snow, and between the shadows a thousand living sparkles literally shot flames from the glistening snow. I had never seen anything like it before; it was very beautiful. We left the forest and passed over a vast plain of tumbled snow. There was snow everywhere as far as the eye could see. The sky above was deep glowing blue; the horizon lines a nascent grey darkness. One looked out upon an enchanted ocean of snow; the wind had wreathed it fantastically in crested waves, or left it gently dimpled like the sands of the seashore. Wave behind wave glistened and sparkled to the horizon, and a gentle breeze raised a snow spray from a thousand crests. The snow scud fled from wave to wave. Yes, it was very beautiful and new, and the world seemed very broad and full of peace. I felt it a privilege to exist in the presence of such beauty. It was my nameday, 39and it seemed as if there were a special significance in all the beauty which lay about me. Pure flame colours were about me as the glistening white robe of a candidate, to whom new mysteries are to be revealed.