It is that very fact, I believe, upon which hinges
the curative value of the sight: you are so completely
absorbed by the moment, and all other things fall away.
Many and many a day have I lain in my deck chair on board
a liner and watched the play of the waves; but the
pleasure, which was very great indeed, was momentary;
and sometimes, when in an unsympathetic mood, I have
since impatiently wondered in what that fascination may
have consisted. It was different here. Snow is very nearly
as yielding as water and, once it fully responds in its
surface to the carving forces of the wind, it stays--as
if frozen into the glittering marble image of its motion.
I know few things that are as truly fascinating as the
sculptures of the wind in snow; for here you have time
and opportunity a-plenty to probe not only into the what,
but also into the why. Maybe that one day I shall write
down a fuller account of my observations. In this report
I shall have to restrict myself to a few indications,
for this is not the record of the whims of the wind, but
merely the narrative of my drives.
In places, for instance, the rounded, "bomb-proof" aspect
of the expanses would be changed into the distinct contour
of gigantic waves with a very fine, very sharp crest-line.
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