28 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
snows and glistening frosts and nipping winter 
breath call to them out loud. Have you gone 
out of early morning into the winter woods and 
across winter fields just for the fun of seeing how 
in the night the rabbit danced the Virginia reel 
and the “quintillion”? Did you never? And 
have you no sense of fitness nor of shame? To 
see the morning fields fairly littered up with the 
rabbit tracks where for sheer delight of happy 
hearts these timorous beasties danced jigs over 
all the fields, delirious in delight—this I think 
would convert any sane body to love of winter. 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 re- 
joice 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 cannot 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. When winter 
brawls you feel constrained to brawl a little your- 
self. You must walk fast or be frozen, and this 
alternative is good for the heart. However ef- 
feminate your spirit, you cannot quite escape the 
rhapsody of the winter wrath. 
This is the season of strength. Brawniness be- 
comes you. Large moods seem fitting. Winter 
is a lesson against whimpering. A naked world 
