Henry David Thoreau's observations about the singular beauty of an ice-covered and sunlit tree might well be applied to any number of natural phenomena, like the delicate and transitory tree blossoms I encountered along the banks of Lake Mohonk. Thoreau writes:
Many times I thought that if the particular tree… were the only one like it in the country, it would be worth the journey across the continent to see it…. But instead of being confined to a single tree, this wonder was as cheap and common as the air itself.
