IMPROMPTUS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21987, 23 June 1933, Page 14

IMPROMPTUS

XIII—WINTER MIST Written for Notes for Women. Now, the mist has come. It lies on the city, frail and nebulous, and everything it touches it enchants. It changes objects so that they appear as if seen through water, or like reflections in a mirror dulled with breath; and all colour is gone. Only form remains, pure and mysterious within the brimming haze. This is the triumphant time of sunrise and sunset. In the morning, everything is silver. The frost lies white oa the streets; the mist hangs white in the air; through the mist the sky shines, bright and clear like a bright shield; and the whiteness and brightness produce an impression of silver. The smoke catches the edge of the sun and the gulls have silver wings. And it is as if the silver were audible, for there is a sense of jubilation and cries, and shouting. But at sunset, all is purple. The sky Is a wash of purple, and the mist brimming in tlie hollows is purple and mauve and violet and indigo, shade after shade of shadowy colour. Against the opalescence all things make patterns. The skyline is a pattern; the trees are a pattern: and every spire and tower and steeple adds to the pattern and is beautiful beyond belief. When the lamps are lit they fleck the purple with points of gold and the two colours melt together and form little pools of burnt orange. But there is no sense of sound now, as in the silver radiance of the morning. Rather is there a hush, a stillness, as if even to whisper were to break the spell, even to breathe were to shatter into fragments the perfect beauty of this winter dream