Nathaniel Hawthorne

“ And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife. She could only reply, that, being summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth-rug. ”

“ They really seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in creating a live little girl out of the snow. And, to say the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our hands to the work in precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind as that in which Violet and Peony now undertook to perform one, without so much as knowing that it was a miracle. ”

“ What has been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony, though by no means very wholesome, even for them, but involved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image. ”

“ The remarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious class of people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralized in various methods, greatly for their edification. One of its lessons, for instance, might be, that it behooves men, and especially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. ”

“ But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good Mr. Lindsey’s stamp. They know everything,—oh, to be sure!—everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be. ”

“ And in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept her heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure and clear as crystal; and, looking at all matters through this transparent medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound that other people laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity. ”

“ The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth from the window. The sun was now gone cut of the sky, leaving, however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and golden clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. ”

“ She is half frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put everything to rights!”
Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, this highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the little white damsel drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more out of the frosty air, and into his comfortable parlor. A Heidenberg stove, filled to the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of ts iron door and causing the vase of water on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. ”

“ You can clamber on the snow-drift, Peony, and reach them easily, I must have them to make some ringlets for our snow-sister’s head!”
“Here they are, Violet!” answered the little boy. “Take care you do not break them. Well done! Well done! How pretty!”
“Does she not look sweetly?” said Violet, with a very satisfied tone; “and now we must have some little shining bits of ice, to make the brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. Mamma will see how very beautiful she is ”

“ But there stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot stove!
But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss.
“Come wife,” said he, “let her have a pair of thick stocking’s and a, woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. For my part, I will go around among the neighbors, and find out where she belongs.”
The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings ”