First Sentence

"A MOONLESS night upon the sandy waste-the sky a canopy of stars, twinkling with super-radiance through the frosty atmosphere ; the gently undulating ground like a billowy sea of silence and desolation, with scarce a stain upon the smooth surface of the snow ; the mantle of night enveloping every landmark upon the horizon beyond the hills in folds of deep, dark indigo, levelling every chance hillock and clump of rough shrub or grass, obliterating road and wayside ditch, which in the broad light of day would have marred the perfect evenness of the wintry pall."