3-052-376 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Months: January, 1880. 'A death-like stillness, save an occasional sob from the wintry winds that now and then flit mournfully over white deserted fields and frozen stretches of river - feeble tear-born gusts that expire, almost as suddenly as born, in the icy fretwork on the hedges and the gaunt branches of the shivering trees. Is not this the picture that instantly springs before the mind's eye at the bare mention of January? - when the poor naked trees seem glad to hide their shame in the snow that weighs down their drooping branches; when the weak wan sun scarce lifts himself at utmost noon above the horizon, and all too soon, disgusted with the chill white world that meets his gaze, passes from us to more genial climes, leaving behind him long, dark, cheerless nights. Is not the Wolf-month, of all months in the year, the most death-like and dismal?' From "Illustrated London News", 1880.