Book excerpt: Excerpt from Village Photographs The first snow flurry has sifted its white powder from a gray cloud only to be followed by a burst of sun light chasing the winter gloom from hill and valley until they glitter again in warn browns, gold, and blue, and violet. High winds have whipped the trees naked, and they must go unclad through the cold season owing to the singular inhumanity of nature. But in their nakedness they will contrive to protect the waxy leaf-buds at every point and axis of their being. These buds are babies they dandle and sing to when the wind blows and the snow falls. The village is too small to have a name familiar to many, but it stands well planted on a small piece of soil which helps to hold the earth together. The grass is faded, but the evergreens are lusty and of a splendid strength. I think I have heard them shout on cold days when all the other trees looked miserable from the whipping of the wind. They were not only born to endure hardness, but to love it. We talk of heart of oak, but give me the heart of a pine or hemlock wherewith to defy misfortune. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.