Since there were hardly any visitors, the narrator spent much time walking across the winter landscape, observing the snow-covered trees and an occasional animal. One time, he came upon a drowsy owl perched on the dead limb of a pine. The owl seemed as inactive as the rest of nature, but the narrator found this appearance to be deceiving when he moved too close to the owl. The owl abruptly came to life: "He launched himself off, and flapped through the pines, spreading his wings to unexpected breadth." Strolling farther, the narrator found other signs of nature's continuing vitality in the midst of winter.
When the narrator returned to his cabin from these jaunts, he sometimes found a friend waiting for him. Once, a "long-headed farmer" visited him, and they heartily recalled "rude and simple times, when men sat about large fires in cold, bracing weather, with clear heads." A poet also visited him, and together they made "that small house ring with boisterous mirth and resound with the murmur of much sober talk." A philosopher also stopped by. He was a great, ideal man whose personality made "plain the image engraven in men's bodies, the God of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments." The narrator was inspired by his conversation with the philosopher and felt a heightened spiritual awareness.
