I glory in Nature and treasure Her as a gift of no little worth. I respect Her might, which She receives from the very hand of the Most High, and bow before Her dread machinations. Winter – most melancholy son of Ceres’ despair – how I worship thee! It may imply my want of wit, but I adore Her hopelessness, regret, and isolation. For I violently oppose such imputations of Her demerit! No, there is something about the brightness and clarity which a cold, crisp winter day brings that heightens and amplifies the senses and excites the flow of reason and feast of soul.
The landscape is more lucidly rendered to the ocular orbs, the olfactory seems more acute, one can taste the very metal of the air, and sound – O what sound! – the world is undisturbed and each penny dropt is like a thundering calvary-charge. The very rustling of the last dead oak leaf, the tiny feet of a bird crunching upon the snow, an icicles slow descent, the timbre of the trees as they sway – the subtlest disturbance of the air is magnified and echoes out into Eternity.
The flesh prickles beneath ones greatcoat and a certain physical awareness informs one’s mind of the many stimuli that assail one. Gabriel Fahrenheit’s scale dips well below thirty-two and those foolish few not unlike myself revel in the quicksilver’s deadly plummet.
If people would just ignore the minor discomfort for a moment they might acclimate to the pinpricking chill and find the world breathtaking and awe-inspiring.
On another point, where is the well-earned appreciation of the beauty and grandeur of Snow? Such a noble substance, of which poets once bowed, but which more oft than not – in these latter days – is scorned and calumniated as a she-devil with evil intention.
By the way, it Snowed earlier today. That light fluffy sort of snow that gathers like dust on one’s topcoat and in one’s hair. The big flakes that one can capture on one’s tongue like a little child rapt with animation and exuberance. So sensational is the soft crunching – sending tremours up one’s spine – yet warming one’s spirit.
The barren trees create an eerie congregation, waiting to be reborn, symbols of death and make pilgrimage to their long awaited Resurrection.
This is the wintertime I know, love, embrace, adore. I maunder about its many thoroughfares and grasp at each incident of its handsomeness.
I scoff, scorn, and scorch with flame of tongue the Conventional Wisdom that instructs compleat retirement from the world in those months of frigid bliss. Must I be confined to my drawing room and its roaring hearth? May I never press my boot-heels into the icy earth? Catch my death!? Hah! I shall catch life and joy and brilliance. That’s what I shall catch.
But enough, be at ease, let us be lulled to sleep by the gentle descent of each crystal speck. Slumber shall encompass us and we shall be at peace, for is there a better fate than the slow seeping out of warmth and life? Well, maybe that’s a stretch too broad for mere mortals to traverse. A question for Ethics, perhaps, let us leave Aesthetic’s judgment to its own interests and honour Winter’s beauties!