A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

One joy of life in the north comes after a winter storm, when the sky, freed of its burden, has paled, and the glow of the unseen sun is everywhere reflected by the snow, so that all things stand out sharp and clear.

The very fact of snow is such an amazement.

It is good here: rustle and snow-crunch...
Ski tracks on the splendid finery
of the snow; a memory
that long ages ago
we passed here together.

I was out every day, and often all night, sleeping but little, studying the so-called wonders and common things ever on show, wading, climbing, sauntering among the blessed storms and calms, rejoicing in almost everything alike that I could see or hear: the glorious brightness of frosty mornings; the sunbeams pouring over the white domes and crags into the groves end waterfalls, kindling marvelous iris fires in the hoarfrost and spray; the great forests and mountains in their deep noon sleep; the good-night alpenglow; the stars; the solemn gazing moon, drawing the huge domes and headlands one by one glowing white out of the shadows hushed and breathless like an audience in awful enthusiasm, while the meadows at their feet sparkle with frost-stars like the sky; the sublime darkness of storm-nights, when all the lights are out; the clouds in whose depths the frail snow-flowers grow; the behavior and many voices of the different kinds of storms, trees, birds, waterfalls, and snow-avalanches in the ever-changing weather.

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently?

At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in my country bath-house.

Cherish the hope that lies beneath the snow.

Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.

Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours.

A town that boasts inhabitants like me
Can have no lack of good society.

My fingers are turning red, my nose is turning red, and that kind of cold, I was, of course, also unfamiliar with. And snow has always had an awe for me. The silence that takes over the world, and just. . . the absolute miracle of snow. I’ve never gotten over it, I have to confess.

You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there — the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.

I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning.