To our thinking, this is meaningless. “It might have been” is neither sad nor joyful, except as it is made so by that with which it is associated. He who is drowned may thus have escaped hanging—“It might have been.” The judge might have been Maud’s husband; but she might have thought of sadder things than that she was not his wife.
“Snow-Bound,” a winter idyl, is, in the opinion of several critics, Whittier’s best performance. A more hackneyed theme he would probably have found it difficult to choose; nor has he the magic charm that makes the old seem as new. It is the unmistakable snow-storm with which our school-readers made us familiar in childhood. The sun rises “cheerless” over “hills of gray”; sinks from sight before it sets; “the ocean roars on his wintry shore”; night comes on, made hoary “with the whirl-dance of the blinding storm,” and ere bedtime
“The white drift piled the window-frame”;
and then, of course, we have the horse and cow and cock, each in turn contemplating the beautiful snow. Even the silly ram
“Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.”
The boys, with mittened hands, and caps drawn down over ears, sally forth to cut a pathway at their sire’s command. And when the second night is ushered in, we are quite prepared for the blazing fire of oaken logs, whose roaring draught makes the great throat of the chimney laugh; while on the clean hearth the apples sputter, the mug of cider simmers, the house-dog sleeps, and the cat meditates. The group of faces gathered round are plain and honest, just such as good, simple country folk are wont to wear, but feebly drawn. In the fitful firelight their features are dim. The father talks of rides on Memphremagog’s wooded side; of trapper’s hut and Indian camp. The mother turns her wheel or knits her stocking, and tells how the Indian came down at midnight on Cocheco town. The uncle, “innocent of books,” unravels the mysteries of moons and tides. The maiden aunt, very sweet and very unselfish, recalls her memories of
“The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails.”
It would be unkind to leave the village schoolmaster out in the biting air, and he is therefore brought in to make us wonder how one small head could contain all he knew.