From Singing in the Morning by Henry Beetle Hough.

Some years we must wait until February for the clear, sunny days that are the greatest asset of the cold season. A mild winter is very well, but all old-fashioned people and most others prefer the cold days of sunshine to mild days of gray clouds and fog. The heart lifts up when gorgeous days come at last, sprinkled in among the usual periods of storm. With the wind northwest and bracing, the sun flooding down from a cloudless blue sky, and the Island breathing freely of weather that everyone welcomes, we are restored and comforted.

Eternal summer may gild the Isles of Greece, but most of those who know and love our own Island crave the gilding that only these brilliant winter days can give. There’s a northerly light and a sea light and a crisp February light on the countryside. Eternal summer would be listless and tiresome, and we should miss the look of the Sound in February, the blue of blue and the white of white, the sunshine exploring all the hitherto secret recesses of the open woods, the elusive fragrance of winter mornings as the sun comes up and the starlings whistle from the telephone wires. If one seeks character in the natural world about him, he comes to look upon the bright winter days with a sharp appetite.

It is such days that will commend Martha’s Vineyard as a winter resort. Here the visitor need expect to find no deep snows and ice lasting all winter through, but places that have these are lacking in our variety and contrast, and our high experience of February days. Ours is a more useful, intimate, and friendly winter, deserving the attention of all who love the out of doors.