In the Forest of Vienna

Fog, Landscape, Figure, Landscape, Winter, Snow, Texts

Dimensions

Image Dimensions: 12.5 x 18.5 | 13.2 x 19.1 cm glued along upper margin
Support Dimensions: 19.0 x 24.8 cm

In keeping with the spirit and personal nature of how this album of views was assembled posthumously by Alice Elliot, it might be possible to infer that it is she emerging from the path shrouded in hoarfrost. Alice Elliot worked in Vienna and married photographer Nichol Elliot here in 1910. Original photograph believed to date  ca. 1910-12.

The following poem by Alice Elliot appears full-page opposite this photograph by Nichol Elliot, In the Forest of Vienna:

The Frost-Fog in the Woods.

THE frost-fog feathers mossy thick with rime
The woodland, flinging light a veil of haze,
⎯Chill, wonderful, ⎯adown the sylvan ways,
That lends them subtle magic, half sublime,
As though each bypath led to elfin clime,
And ermined sprites might peer amid the maze
Of hoary filigree their haunt displays, ⎯
An ice-grey idyll of old wintertime.

Grey things have glory exquisite as glow,
And chill things grace; yea, eerie though they be,
Ways dim to travel enter wonderland;
Nor high souls reck of ills to undergo,
Intent on goal no other eye may see,
Whence grace and glory beckon hand in hand.