"How do you like this cold weather?  I hope you have all been earnestly praying for it as a salutary relief from the dreadfully mild and unhealthy season preceding it, fancying yourself half putrified [sic] from the want of it, and that you now all draw into the fire, complain that you never felt such bitterness of cold before, that you are half starved, quite frozen, and wish the mild weather back again with all your hearts."

~ excerpt from a Jane Austin (1775 - 1817) Letter. The English Year, compiled by Geoffrey Grigson, Oxford University Press, 1967.