It is only four o'clock; but it is winter and the sun has already set:
there are no clouds in the clear, frosty sky to reflect its slant
beams, but the air itself is tinged with a slight roseate colour which
is again reflected on the snow that covers the ground. I live in a
lone cottage on a solitary, wide heath: no voice of life reaches me. I
see the desolate plain covered with white, save a few black patches
that the noonday sun has made at the top of those sharp pointed
hillocks from which the snow, sliding as it fell, lay thinner than on
the plain ground: a few birds are pecking at the hard ice that covers
the pools -- for the frost has been of long continuance.
