Wherever there was a knot of midnight roisterers , they quaffed her health . She sighed , however , to perceive that the air was tainted -- as the atmosphere of this world must continually be -- with the dying breaths of mortals who had lingered just long enough for her to bury them . But there were millions left alive to rejoice at her coming , and so she pursued her way with confidence , strewing emblematic flowers on the doorstep of almost every dwelling , which some persons will gather up and wear in their bosoms , and others will trample under foot . The carrier-boy can only say further that early this morning she filled his basket with New Year 's addresses , assuring him that the whole city , with our new mayor and the aldermen and common council at its head , would make a general rush to secure copies . Kind patrons , will not you redeem the pledge of the New Year ? SNOWFLAKES . There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning , and through the partially-frosted window-panes I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm . A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air and hover downward with uncertain flight , now almost alighting on the earth , now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere . These are not the big flakes heavy with moisture which melt as they touch the ground and are portentous of a soaking rain . It is to be in good earnest a wintry storm . The two or three people visible on the sidewalks have an aspect of endurance , a blue-nosed , frosty fortitude , which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day . By nightfall -- or , at least , before the sun sheds another glimmering smile upon us -- the street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snowdrifts . The soil , already frozen for weeks past , is prepared to sustain whatever burden may be laid upon it , and to a Northern eye the landscape will lose its melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own when Mother Earth , like her children , shall have put on the fleecy garb of her winter 's wear . The cloud-spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle . As yet , indeed , there is barely a rime like hoar-frost over the brown surface of the street ; the withered green of the grass-plat is still discernible , and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look gray instead of black . All the snow that has yet fallen within the circumference of my view , were it heaped up together , would hardly equal the hillock of a grave . Thus gradually by silent and stealthy influences are great changes wrought . These little snow-particles which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls through the air will bury the great Earth under their accumulated mass , nor permit her to behold her sister Sky again for dreary months . We likewise shall lose sight of our mother 's familiar visage , and must content ourselves with looking heavenward the oftener . Now , leaving the Storm to do his appointed office , let us sit down , pen in hand , by our fireside .
Gloomy as it may seem , there is an influence productive of cheerfulness and favorable to imaginative thought in the atmosphere of a snowy XXXXX .
Mother Northern bleakness carrier-boy day flings grass-plat left morning weeks