| Show from star papers by the ber bev henry ward Me beecher beechen echer frost in the window books have been written of painted windows and journeys long and expensive have been made to see them and without a doubt they are both curious and more than curious they are admirable one such work of art standi standing nr through generations of men and making countless hearts glad with its beauty js is a treasure for which chany any community may be grateful but are we so destitute of decorated windows as at first one might eight suppose last night the thermometer sank nearly to zero and see what business nature has had on hand every pane of glass is etched and figured as never moorish artist decorated alhambra wilt wil wll you pais it unexamined simply because it cost you nothing because it is so common because it is this morning the property property of so many people because it was froug wrought t by nature and not by man do not do so learn rather to enjoy it for its own elegance and for or godys gods sake who gave to frosts such wondrous artist tendencies the children are wiser than their elders they are already at the window interpreting these mysterious pictures one has hag discovered a silent solitary lake extremely beautiful among stately white cliffs another points out a forest of white fir trees and pines growing in rugged grandeur there are in succession descove discovered red mountains valleys cities of glorious structures a little confused in their outline by distance there are various beasts too here a bear coming down to the water birds in flocks or sitting voiceless and solitary there are rivers flowing through plains and elephants and buffaloe buffalos buff alos and herds of cattle there are dogs and serpents trees and horses ships and men beside all these phantom creatures there are shadowy ornaments of every degree of beauty simple or complex running through the whole scale from a mere dash of the artists art ert ista iata tool to the most studied and belabor ate compositions neither does night repeat itself Ey every erywin window has haa its separate design every pane of glass is individual and peculiar you see only one appearance of anxiety in the artist and that isi is lest time and room should fail for the expression of the et idless eddies imaginations which throng his fertile soul there is a generous se nerous disregard of all fictitious or r natural distinctions of society tn in this beautiful wot wor working king the designs upon the poorhouse poor house windows are just as exquisite as any upon the tile rich mans mansion the little childs bedroom window is just as so carefully hand hana handleis handled leil asahe as the proudest window in in any room of state the church can boast wast of nothing better than the e emblazon m blazon biazon ings on n the window of the poor seam seamstress se who lives jut ju iut lut t by for a few hours everybody is rich evs every ry man own owns pictures and galleries ot of pictures but then comes the iconoclast the sun ah remorseless eyell eyes wily why will you gaze out all these theme exquisite figures and lines art thou jealous balous lest night shall make sweeter flowers in winter time than thou canet in all the summer time for shame envious father of flowers there is no end of thy abundance around the equator the summer never dies flowers per fu jle ile ne jie the whole ecliptic and spreading out thence the summer shall travel northward and for full eight months thou hast the temperate zones for thy gardens will not all the flowers of the tropics and of eight month zones suffice will natall not all ali the my reads that hide under leaves that climb up for air V t tree tops that nestle in rock crevices or sheet the open plains with wide effulgence that ruffle the rocks and cover ou out t of sight all rude and homely things suffice thy heart that thou must come and rob from our winter canvas all the fine things the rootless trees the flowers that blossom without growing the wilderness of pale shrubberies eries that grow by night to die by day re pac i sun thou should st set us a better example but the indefatigable night repairs the desolation new pictures supply the waste ones new cathedrals there are new forests fringed and blossoming bloss oming new sceneries and new races of extinct animals we are ire rich every morning and poor every noon one day with us measures the space of two hundred years in kingdoms a hundred years to build up and a hundred years yearn to decay and dest destroy rov twelve hours to overspread the evanes cent pane pane with glorious beauty and twelve to extract and dissipate the pictures how is the frost picturing like fancy painting thus we fil fill the vagrant hours with innumerable designs antl anti ano ann paint visions upon the visionless sphere of time which with every revolution destroys our work restoring it back to the tile realm of waste fantasies but is not this a type of finer things than arrant fictions Is it not a mournful vision of many a virtuous youth overlaid with every device of virtue which wilch parental care could lay on dissolved before the hot breath of love blurred and quite rubbed out or shall we read a leason lesson for a too unpractical mind full of airy theories and dainty plans of exquisite good that lie upon the surface of the mind fair lair indeed till touched the first attempt at realization is a when an artist tries to tool these frosted sketches the most exquisite touch of or ripest skill would mar and destroy them or rather shall we not reverently and behold in these morning pictures wrought without color and kissed upon the window by the cold lips of winter another instance of that divine beneficence of which suffuses the he heavens clothes the earth and royally decorates the months and sends them forth through all hours seasons all latitudes to fill the earth with ja joy pure as the great heart from which it had lal ial its birth irth |
