An ominous snowstorm is predicted, and our city is shutting down. The snow plows are at the ready, and it will be the first work these men have had this year. The townspeople will rise at dawn and get out their shovels and snowblowers, and whoever gets up first will clear the sidewalks all the way to the corner. Peering through the frost on the windows, you ask yourself, “Is this the work of humans?”

Some of you may think I’m a pessimist. I am a pessimist. One can’t read the news and be chirpy. But I am always on the lookout for evidence of innate human goodness. In the innumerable flood myths, from Noah’s ark to Ovid’s Deucalion and Pyrrha, God and the gods conclude that there are few good people on Earth. Then they decide: “ Let’s nuke ‘em! No, let’s drown ‘em!” Except for Noah’s family and Deucalion and Pyrrha.

But surely people who shovel other people’s walks get goodness points?

And now before the storm comes, let me recommend two enchanting books and a winter poem.

Elizabeth Bowen’s To the North (1932). Some of of Bowen’s loveliest sentences appear in her neglected novel, To the North. “Vaguely trailing a tulip, Emmeline stood by the tallboy smiling in silence at Lady Waters.” It’s the “vaguely” that does it for me: it makes the image so real.

It’s the small moments that make Elizabeth Bowen great. The actions of her whimsical characters are graceful and piquant. In To the North, two beautiful young women, Cecilia, a sociable widow, and Emmeline, her calm sister-in-law, live together to save money. Their fates are parallel and opposite at once: restless Cecilia travels constantly while Emmeline owns a travel agency but seldom travels.(N.B. Do you suppose Anne Tyler got the idea from Bowen for The Accidental Tourist?) But when Cecilia introduces charming Markie to Emmeline, she falls in love and neglects her travel agency. There are many layers in this book, but the ending caught me off-balance.

Howard Sturgis’s On the Pottlecombe Cornice (1908). This charming long short story portrays the gentle life of Major Mark Hankisson, a retired military gentleman who lives in two rooms in Pottlecombe, a tiny village. Every day he takes a long, challenging walk. He has more stamina than most because of his military training. But one day he notices another determined walker. “…there was one lady whom, except on the stormiest days, he rarely failed to meet.” And that is Miss Agnes Lamb, who lives with her sister. The years go by, and eventually they nod at each other, though they never speak. Can a relationship be formed on such formalities? This lovely story is one of the Zephyr Books, published by Mike Walmer.

I still have my copy of The Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. There are pressed flowers on some of the pages.

Below is an ultra-appropriate winter poem.

“Snow” by Edna St. Millay.

Pile high the hickory and the light
log of chestnut struck by blight
Welcome-in the winter night

The day has gone in hewing and felling,
sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling,
For the night of talk and story-telling

These are the hours that give the edge
To the blunted axe and the bent wedge,
Straighten the saw and lighten the sledge.

Here are question and reply,
And the fire reflected in the thinking eye.
So peace, and let the bobcat cry.