The Joy of Winter by William B. Quayle

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 20, 1910

The Joy of Winter

By William B. Quayle

Such as esteem winter a season to be endured — a frozen roadway leading to the redolence of spring — are far from the truth. We may fairly say they know not the truth. Spring is radiant; winter is jubilant. Winter trumpets like a war-like troop. Each season has its own strength, seasonableness, serenity, violence, tenderness, tears, rejoicement, as the case may stand. Each season in its way is best; therefore those who endure winter are utterly amiss, and those who enjoy winter are utterly right.

Winter is ushered in by the leaf-fall of melancholy autumn, and ushered out by the rejoicing of the leaf-making of the gladsome spring; ushered in by sadness, and ushered out by joy; and its plateau lies high and cold like the giant uplands of the mountains,—let in of weeping autumn, let out of leafing spring. Winter is the season of naked strength. . . .

The whole spacious world has become a roadway for the truculent winter winds. All is open. The north wind strides along the highways. He washes across the cold shock-tented corn fields like some devastating sea. He climbs the snowy mountains with a sudden angry leap. He takes the breath of travelers. He garments the whole landscape in storm. He hoots like the night owls; he whoops like a bloodthirsty Indian band; he carouses like a drunkard; he shrieks like a maniac; he is sleepless as a sick man; he moans like the broken-hearted; he shouts like men in battle; he drives like a mad charioteer; he curses like a gambler who has staked all and lost all. The winter wind goeth every whither, calls down the chimneys of the rich with a pitiful cry for admission, leaps into the frail houses of the very poor as if he were the landlord and their rent past due, nips with fingers like pincers the noses of the adventurous, and pounces triumphant upon the proud sea and pummels its wide waters with indignant fists till the sea boils like a pot.

Such are the doings of the winter wind. Do they make you shiver? Rather they should make you in battle humor. Indoors is no place for people in winter. Outdoors is the place. Shivering by the fire is justifiable for invalids only. In spring people go outdoors; in winter they go indoors; but the latter procedure is quite amiss. All seasons are outdoor seasons. Spring is time when we lie open to the sun; winter is time when men run races with the winds and the swift leaves, and when we rejoice to feel the blood tingle and our pulse bound; when the fury of the world is on us; when the battles of our Viking folks survive in us. In winter we are not to flee from but toward.

I fear me we have not caught the spirit of winter. We make outdoor trips under protest. We take the short cut. We complain at the nip of the wind and the frost. We say, ‘It is below zero.’ We shiver from place to place. We date everything by how near spring is. All this is wrong, greatly wrong. Winter is frankly glorious. The slow are stung to speed. The worn feel the tonic that seems drifted with the winter snows. Lassitude is all but impossible when frost writes its poetry on kitchen windows, and the snows crunch under the feet, and the cold stars blink with merry twinkle in their eyes as if to say, “Friends, how like you this weather?” Winter is to be regarded as our friend.

This is the season of strength. Brawniness becomes you. Large moods seem fitting. Winter is a lesson against whimpering. A naked world not aching in the cold but rollicking in it and with it, is a lesson in enduring hardness. Complaints ought at this season to freeze on the lips. Let sleigh-bells jingle; let the wolf lope across the sullen fields of snowy nights; let the recluse owl hoot as he goes about like a surly housewife

getting supper ready; let the icy branches crack in the frosty air like riflemen at practise; let the bittersweet berries hang like garnets coated with frost; let the mobile river turn to stable shore where skaters may hold festival; let the cattle gather with their trustful eyes, waiting for supper and the dark, making no complaint at anything, or anybody. . . .

For myself I confess to feeling like the rabbits when winter comes. But for being pious, I would not put it past me to dance. But I run and shout and rejoice in the storm and call with the winds and regale me on the storm when the wild winds try to push me from the road and can not do it. And to hear and see the forest take delight in the wrath of the tempests, and hear the deep diapason of huge trees buffeting with huge winds — friend, that is fine.

Winter is life to body and spirit. Nothing dyspeptic can winter tolerate. . . . Acclimate your soul to winter, and you will be inclined to draft resolutions of sympathy for all who have no winter season.—William B. Quayle, in Northwestern Christian Advocate.