While waiting for the pattern change...

[donsutherland1]

While waiting for the pattern change for winter's return to unfold and tracking the cold as it does so, perhaps it's a good time to look back at a 19th century New Englander's perspective on winter.

Those living in the Great Lakes region, Plains States, Mid-Atlantic region, Southeast, among other areas should feel free to substitute their own region into the text. The text touches on the glories of winter and those glories are not known to any single region. People across time and geographic expanses can all relate to the sentiments expressed.

The following excerpts are taken from American essayist and novelist Charles Dudley Warner's "Back-Log Studies--IV." published in the April 1872 issue of Scribner's Monthly.

The South Wind:
I wish I could fitly celebrate the joyousness of the New England winter. Perhaps I could if I more thoroughly believed in it. But skepticism comes in with the south wind. When that begins to blow, one feels the foundations of his belief breaking up...

It...has done more, I suspect to demoralize society than any other.

Those who don't like winter don't know what's best for them:
Probably if the people of New England could have a plebiscitum on their weather they would vote against it, especially against winter. Almost no one speaks well of winter. And this suggests the idea that most people here were either born in the wrong place, or do not know what is best for them. I doubt if these grumblers would be any better satisfied, or would turn out as well, in the tropics.

The effect of a great snowstorm:
In order to be exhilarating, it must be real winter. I have noticed that the lower the thermometer sinks, the more fiercely the north wind rages, and the deeper the snow is, the higher rise the spirits of the community. The activity of the "elements" has a great effect upon country folk especially; and it is a more wholesome excitement than that caused by a great conflagration. The abatement of a snowstorm that grows to exceptional magnitude is regretted, for there is always the half hope that this will be, since it has gone so far, the largest fall of snow ever known in the region, burying out of sight the great fall of 1808 [probably the January 26-29, 1805 snowstorm]...

I recall the great snowstorms on the northern New England hills, which lasted for a week with no cessation, with no sunrise or sunset, and no observation at noon; and the sky all the while dark with the driving snow, and the whole world full of the noise of the rioting Boreal forces [wind]; until the roads were obliterated, the fences covered, and the snow was piled solidly above the first-story windows of the farmhouse on one side, and drifted before the front-door so high that egress could only be had by tunneling the bank.

After such a battle and siege, when the wind fell and the sun struggled out again, the pallid world lay subdued and tranquil, and the scattered dwellings were not unlike wrecks stranded by the tempest and half buried in sand. But when the blue sky again bent over all, the wide expanse of snow sparkled like diamond-fields, and the chimney signal-smokes could be seen, how beautiful was the picture!

Winter weather brings out generosity:
Home sympathies and charities are most active in the winter. Coming in from my late walk,--in fact, driven in by a hurrying north wind that would brook no delay,--a wind that brought snow that did not seem to fall out of a bounteous sky, but to be blown from polar fields,--I find The Mistress[his wife] returned from town, all in a glow of philanthropic excitement...

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

How often do many here mourn the South Wind's crushing one's hopes for a good snowstorm or fear that the South Wind has vanquished winter all too prematurely? How often do many here see their sense of anticipation soar as the promise of a heavy snowfall grows ever more imminent? How often do many here cherish the snow's wondrous ability to transform fields, roads, trees, and the entire outdoors? How often do many here lend a hand to help one with one's stuck car or to shovel one's driveway?

The times may have changed since Warner wrote his essay. Cities and suburbs have overspread the countryside. Industry and Services have supplanted agriculture as the center of the U.S. economy. However, in spite of all these changes, human nature remains the same. As such, winter can still bring joy to hearts everywhere and each snowflake remains a perfect diamond beyond compare.

May a lot of snow fall in the remaining days of Winter 2004-05 and in our lives well beyond.