26 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
he were the landlord and their rent past due, 
nips with fingers like pincers the noses of the ad- 
venturous, and pounces triumphantly upon the 
proud sea and pummels its wide waters with in- 
dignant 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. Shiver- 
ing by the fire is justifiable for invalids only. In 
spring people go outdoors; in winter they go in- 
doors; 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 pulses 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 win- 
ter. 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 
