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Thirty below freezing! It was inconceivable till one stepped out into it at midnight, and the first shock of that clear, still air took away the breath as does a plunge into sea-water … But for the jingle of the sleigh-bells the ride might have taken place in a dream, for there was no sound of hoofs upon the snow, the runners sighed a little now and again as they glided over an inequality, and all the sheeted hills round about were as dumb as death. |
This is from “In Sight of Monadnock” in From Tideway to Tideway, collected in “Letters to the Family, 1892-1913. It describes the arrival of the young Kiplings in Brattleboro, Vermont, on their honeymoon in February 1892. At midnight this week it has been rather warmer, only twenty below. |
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