It rose in the streets till men might almost have been drowned
in it like a sea of solid foam. And the people of the place told
me there had been no such thing seen in it in all recent records,
or perhaps in the records of all its four thousand years.
All this came later; but for me at the moment, looking at the scene
in so dreamy a fashion, it seemed merely like a dramatic conclusion
to my dream. It was but an accident confirming what was but an aspect.
But it confirmed it with a strange and almost supernatural completeness.
The white light out of the window in the north lay on all the roofs
and turrets of the mountain town; for there is an aspect in which
snow looks less like frozen water than like solidified light.
As the snow accumulated there accumulated also everywhere
those fantastic effects of frost which seem to fit in with
the fantastic qualities of medieval architecture; and which
make an icicle seem like the mere extension of a gargoyle.
It was the atmosphere that has led so many romancers to make
medieval Paris a mere black and white study of night and snow.
Something had redrawn in silver all things from the rude ornament
on the old gateways to the wrinkles on the ancient hills of Moab.
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