'A Great Trial of the Spirits'

“Winter is to me (mild or harsh) always a great trial of the spirits.” 

And, apparently, to most of the population of Houston. At least Charles Lamb was living at a northernly latitude – London --  when writing to his Quaker friend Bernard Barton on January 23, 1824. What’s Houston’s excuse? The temperature dipped to 39 degrees F on Saturday night – balmy by the standards of Northern Ohio and upstate New York, the home of hardy folk. Tonight the forecast is 32 degrees F, with snow or sleet in localized area.

 

I went to the grocery Saturday morning and the place was mobbed. The aisles were clogged with shopping carts piled high with staples – bottled water, toilet paper, beer. Schools have already announced closures on Monday. Neighbors are wrapping their pipes and plants. One asked if the antifreeze in his truck would freeze. At least six people died in a 133-vehicle crash on an icy interstate up in Fort Worth. Texans have little experience with ice-covered roads. It’s not Schadenfreude to say we are safe and warm.

 

In September 1797, Lamb wrote to Coleridge, his childhood friend, including two poems. At the letter’s conclusion he writes:

 

“I wish you would send me my great-coat. The snow and the rain season is at hand, and I have but a wretched old coat, once my father’s, to keep ’em off, and that is transitory.

 

“When time drives flocks from field to fold,

When ways grow foul and blood gets cold,

 

“I shall remember where I left my coat. Meet emblem wilt thou be, old Winter, of a friend’s neglect—cold, cold, cold! Remembrance where remembrance is due.”