"The ice has not spilled over the rough rock ledges for anybody's good or pleasure, as far as we can tell. It simply swells in the silent hollow, arising out of unknown laws; and if we are like most sightseers we will admire it for a minute and maybe carry away a small sensation of awe or refreshment. Our experience will be briefly enriched, that is all. But what, if, instead, we make our minds glide more intently over these surfaces, outlasting our casual curiosity? Let us perceive beauty — or whatever we choose to call these austere flourishes of winter — but let us think as well, taking from our observation, if we can, the matter for more durable reflection.
"What shall we make of the frozen waterfall? Is it not a happy chance that has brought us, strangely hopeful, here to see, outside the talkative world in the sunlit, silent theatre of the woods? We might regard the ice as a symbol of impermanence, or of the secret creativity of nature, or of some stern principle beneath the surface of existence, or of the right resolve too long frozen within us — but symbol or not, the frozen waterfall is certainly an outlandish presence that reminds us how little we have really explored, how seldom we have crossed habit into freer territory. If this afternoon we have wandered out to a country of contemplation, that is good; but will we ever get beyond mere miles, and beyond the limits of dreaming, to some brave and wakeful truth at last? The mechanical seasons around us, which we have long taken for granted, are capable, we see, of extraordinary creations; so what fine work might a conscious human being do?"
