Ritual and observed beauty make remote winter isolation bearable and even alluring.

Evidence

We had a good deal of sacred music to-day, to make it as like Sunday as possible. The “faint melancholy” of this winter loneliness is very fascinating. How glorious the amber fires of the winter dawns are, and how gloriously to-night the crimson clouds descended just to the mountain tops and were reflected on the pure surface of the snow! — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 235

Categorization

• FICTION: A winter-bound narrator holding melancholy and glory together in one voice is a rich model for a story of deliberate solitude in a hostile landscape.
• SHARE: The image of crimson clouds reflected on unmelted snow under a ‘faint melancholy’ is the kind of single line one specific mountain-loving friend would want texted to them.