the elegance of Ellis Peters

 I was worked up yesterday - don't know why it happens. But today at work I thought that what I realy needed was to pick up one of the Brother Cadfael mysteries by the late Ellis Peters. To spend time in Cadfael's company is to be reminded of what it means to be human - at least, this is what I get out of it.

So, I picked up The Confession of Brother Haluin, which happens to be the first one I ever read (but I suggest they be read in order). I wanted to read one which takes place in the winter.  And her beautiful prose struck me once again.  Here is the second paragraph:

The weather-wise had predicted heavy snows, and in mid-month they came, not with blizzard winds, but in a blinding, silent fall that continued for several days and nights, smoothing out every undulation, blanching all color out of the world, burying the sheep in the hills and the hovels in the valleys, smothering all sound, climbing every wall, turning roofs into ranges of white, impassable mountains, and the very air between earth and sky into an opaque, drifting whirlpool of flakes large as lilies. When the fall finally ceased, and the heavy swags of cloud lifted, the Foregate lay half buried, so nearly smoothed out into one white level that there were scarcely any shadows except where the tall buildings of the abbey soared out of the pure pallor, and the eerie, reflected light made day even of night, where only a week before the ominous gloom had made night of day.

I'm feeling better already.