A fair morning for a brisk walk

Tom Pinch, one of the more becoming figures in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1844), is on the move. "What better time for driving, riding, walking, moving through the air by any means, than a fresh, frosty morning, when hope runs cheerily though the veins with the brisk blood, and tingles in the frame from head to foot," writes Charles Dickens. "This was the glad commencement of a bracing day in early winter, such as may put the languid summer season (speaking of it when it can't be had) to the blush, and shame the spring for being sometimes cold by halves. The sheep bells rang as clearly in the vigorous air, as if they felt its wholesome influence like living creatures; the trees, in lieu of leaves or blossoms, shed upon the ground a frosty rime that sparkled as it fell, and might have been the dust of diamonds." The smoke streams up from cottage chimneys "high, as if the earth had lost its grossness, being so fair, and must not be oppressed by heavy vapour. The crust of ice on the else rippling brook was so transparent, that the lively water might of its own free will have stopped – in Tom's glad mind it had – to look upon the lovely morning. And, lest the sun should break this charm too eagerly, there moved between him and the ground, a mist like that which waits upon the moon on summer nights." All in all, a fair morning for a brisk walk, and a cheery encounter that moves the plot along as well.