
                               Thomas de Quincey

                          Klosterheim, or: The Masque

                                   Chapter I

The winter of 1633 had set in with unusual severity throughout Suabia and
Bavaria, though as yet scarcely advanced beyond the first week of November. It
was, in fact, at the point when our tale commences, the 8th of that month, or,
in our modern computation, the 18th; long after which date it had been customary
of late years, under any ordinary state of the weather, to extend the course of
military operations, and without much decline of vigour. Latterly, indeed, it
had become apparent that entire winter campaigns, without either formal
suspensions of hostilities, or even partial relaxations, had entered professedly
as a point of policy into the system of warfare which now swept over Germany in
full career, threatening soon to convert its vast central provinces - so
recently blooming Edens of peace and expanding prosperity - into a howling
wilderness; and which had already converted immense tracts into one universal
aceldama, or human shambles, reviving to the recollection at every step the
extent of past happiness in the endless memorials of its destruction. This
innovation upon the old practice of war had been introduced by the Swedish
armies, whose northern habits and training had fortunately prepared them to
receive a German winter as a very beneficial exchange; whilst upon the less
hardy soldiers from Italy, Spain, and the Southern France, to whom the harsh
transition from their own sunny skies had made the very same climate a severe
trial of constitution, this change of policy pressed with a hardship that
sometimes1 crippled their exertions.
    It was a change, however, not so long settled as to resist the extraordinary
circumstances of the weather. So fierce had been the cold for the last
fortnight, and so premature, that a pretty confident anticipation had arisen, in
all quarters throughout the poor exhausted land, of a general armistice. And as
this, once established, would offer a ready opening to some measure of permanent
pacification, it could not be surprising that the natural hopefulness of the
human heart, long oppressed by gloomy prospects, should open with unusual
readiness to the first colourable dawn of happier times. In fact, the reaction
in the public spirits was sudden and universal. It happened also that the
particular occasion of this change of prospect brought with it a separate
pleasure on its own account. Winter, which by its peculiar severity had created
the apparent necessity for an armistice, brought many household pleasures in its
train - associated immemorially with that season in all northern climates. The
cold which had casually opened a path to more distant hopes was also for the
present moment a screen
