One of my current pet theories is that the winter is a kind of evangelist, more subtle than Billy Graham, of course, but of the same stuff. – Shirley Ann Grau

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to Literature, summer the tissues and blood. – John Burroughs, “The Snow-Walkers,” 1866

[W]hat a severe yet master artist old Winter is…. No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel. – John Burroughs, “The Snow-Walkers,” 1866