XXI
After the slackening of the Winter rains, which I tried to picture to you in my last letter, there came an aftermath of light showers and lovely mists, soft, filmy, floating about the mountain mists. Nothing else in all these beautiful Oregon hills seems quite so near and dear to me as these mists, so sympathetic, so companionable, and yet so indescribable; a witchery of nature, too changeful and elusive to be caught by words. I cannot tell you how much I love them, nor how strangely they appeal to my better self. Often, when annoyed by household cares, and the many—
“Little sharp vexations,
The briers that catch and fret,”
I look out of my kitchen window and see these tender gray mists quietly rising from the encircling hills, like clouds of incense to the Great Spirit. Tears “rise in my heart and gather to my eyes,” my rebellious mood is softened, my worries slip away, peace steals into my heart, and I am comforted and helped as by the silent sympathetic pressure of the hand of a friend. I cannot analyze the mysterious charm of these dreamy, brooding
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