The desolation of winter sustains our frail hopes. Nature is kindest then; she does not taunt us with fruition. It is the luxury of summer which tant… - Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Comfort is tedious when it lasts too long.

I hail the seasons as they go, I woo the sunshine, brave the wind, I scan the lily and the rose, I nod to every nodding tree, I follow every stream that flows, And wait beside the steadfast sea.

Never does the soul feel so far from human life as when a man finds himself alone in the vistas of the moon, either in the streets of a sleeping city, the avenues of the woods, or by the border of the sea. Earth, swayed perhaps by her powerful satellite, withdraws her sympathy from him and he wanders in a white void, wondering if he was born to be thus annulled.