The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down, as if it had not even the spirit to pour. – Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

Snow-flakes! Yes, it is true, in accordance with the child-thought, you come floating so gently down from Heaven as if afraid of hurting the wintry earth…. Ye gentle, fleecy things!… Snow-flakes! – A.S. Macduff, “The Message of the Snow-Flakes,” in The Sunday Magazine (London),

Rain! whose soft architectural hands have power to cut stones, and chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains. – Henry Ward Beecher