In Praise of Snow, Against the Machine

As you are well aware, my friends, snow is the best kind of weather, so when it falls in profusion, I cannot help but delight. Indeed, it need not even arrive in any significant quantity to rouse my happiest spirits, so how much more may I wonder to find inches untrodden upon the ground? This is an especially happy occasion in the river valley, as the river is frozen over. Thus a layer of undisturbed white shrouds the surface of the ice, warming the hearts of all. Regrettably, I am not among the fields and the forests of that river valley, and so my imagination longs to look upon that place.

Instead, I am at the Academy, which has employed the fullness of its ability in an effort to spoil the snowfall. First, it made the insane demand that we attend classes after 10:00 am today. Usually, I have class from 9:30 am until 5:50 pm on Tuesday, but today I am busy only from 11:00 am until 12:15 pm. You might wonder what the problem with this is, for all seems to be on my side. This is true, but the principle is that the inhuman Academy did not cancel those events. The professors made these cancellations, noting the insanity of the Man and his Machine. This means that, contrary to the wishes of the establishment, I can play in the snow, read a book or three, and scriven symbols of various kinds all afternoon. So I shall.

What of playing in the snow? Ah, the Academy must cast a black shadow on this, as well! The heathen hordes, forced from their dismal dwellings by the aforementioned demands, have trodden the few fields that could have remained still and silent, undisturbed and serene. The most brutish and barbarous of footprints, bringing with them all manner of murk and mud have made their marks. There is no good in this black and greasy murk, and the excellences of both snow and mud are lost in their commingling. Furthermore, there is the concentrated effort to clear all sorts of pathways by the most uncivil of means, from salting to shoveling to the employ of bleak machines which war upon the wondrous white, spurting its spoilt, discolored masses hither and yon without concern.

There is an answer to these troubles, and that is to find the remaining instances of excellence and to bask before them. My favorite window, in a hall on a hill, allows me to look upon the northern hills, and the snowy landscape cannot fail to impress. In this way, one may delight in the spaces apart from the Academy. There is also no effort to sabotage the presence of snow in the trees, whose precarious perches among both needles and branches exude the wonder of frailty and impress upon the mind the delight of thinking on how the snow came to rest as it did. Rooftops, too, are spared the onslaught of these certain madmen, so many halls and houses grant the onlooker a particularly pleasing impression. It is an excellence of snow that I cannot be stopped from enjoying it.

There are yet two longings that consume me, neither of which will likely be met. For one, I wish to sit before a fire, but I can think of no fireplace anywhere around here, and even in the river valley we have reason to believe a dead critter decomposes in our chimney. I myself do not believe this. For another, I wish to sled down a hill. Though there are hills here, I am without a sled, and I am not inclined to go searching for one. Sledding, by the way, is the best of all sport.

Have an excellent snow, O friends!