Notwithstanding what I have elsewhere said about the desolation of snow,
when one looks closely it is little more than a thin veil after all, and
takes and repeats the form of whatever it covers. Every path through
the fields is just as plain as before. On every hand the ground sends
tokens, and the curves and slopes are not of the snow, but of the earth
beneath. In like manner the rankest vegetation hides the ground less
than we think. Looking across a wide valley in the month of July, I have
noted that the fields, except the meadows, had a ruddy tinge, and that
corn, which near at hand seemed to completely envelop the soil, at that
distance gave only a slight shade of green. The color of the ground
everywhere predominated, and I doubt not that, if we could see the earth
from a point sufficiently removed, as from the moon, its ruddy hue, like
that of Mars, would alone be visible.
What is a man but a miniature earth, with many disguises in the way of
manners, possessions, dissemblances? Yet through all--through all the
work of his hands and all the thoughts of his mind--how surely the
ground quality of him, the fundamental hue, whether it be this or that,
makes itself felt and is alone important!