A description of miserable weather is appropriately followed by a description of miserable men!
Weather And The Environment
hissing sleet
flat, drenched land
low visibility
withered grass
wind tossing bare trees
a burned house
dankness
chill
north wind smelling of swamps, sea and approaching winter
water dripping from Everard's hood past his face
hoofs squelching in deep mud
The Men
snuffling
sneezing
comrades fevered with chattering teeth in sick bay
wretched
tarnished metal
sodden kilts
gooseflesh
sunken cheeks
short rations
gloomy atrium
slumped, staring staff
We get the point. Sometimes, if we analyse an Andersonian description and list the adjectives, they go on and on. Not a complaint. Appreciate and savour every detail.
10 comments:
Ah, the North European winter...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And the north American winters can be pretty miserable too, altho New England winters are not as bad as they can be in Canada or the Mid West of the US.
Ad astra! Sean
Though I tend to like being outside in falling snow better than outside in falling rain.
I like biking, hiking, and XC skiing, & dislike the in-between conditions that are poor for all of them
That dank chill is peculiarly North European. It's more penetrating than Canadian cold, for some reason -- and I've been in Canadian winters where steel railroad rails shattered.
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling!
Jim: Which means you would probably be just as miserable as these Romans were! The kind of winter weather you like does not seem at all typical of north European winters.
Mr. Stirling: Then I sit corrected! North European winters can be just plain NASTIER than even frigid Canadian winters.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it doesn't help that Europeans, by Canadian standards, are/have been rather backward about heating systems. It isn't until the last two generations that really good systems have become common there. When my father was stationed in Britain after WWII, a few years before I was born, coal fires were still the predominant method and the barracks he was at just stopped trying to heat the rooms after an arbitrary period in the spring. At which they left the windows open and everyone switched to summer-weight uniforms.
(Another comment by Mr Stirling that I have had to copy and paste.)
I am sometimes amazed at the directions taken by combox discussions.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Old as my house is (built in 1888), we were not that backward! It was built with central heating (an advanced luxury in 1888?) using steam radiators. And I can remember when my father replaced central oil heating with natural gas around 1970.
And I recall the frequent mention of coal fires for heating Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson's flat at 221B Baker Street in A. Conan Doyle's mysteries.
Paul: I agree!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: central heating (including steam heat) was common in N. America generations before it spread to many homes in Europe. It was confined to public buildings for some time, too.
(From SM Stirling.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that seems odd to me! The Industrial Revolution took off in a big way FIRST in the UK before it spread to the US. So I would have expected wider and earlier use of central heating in Britain, not the US.
My house still has the old timey cast iron steam radiators, btw. They work, so why change them?
Ad astra! Sean
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