‘‘The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism, but February.... Spring is too far away to comfort even by anticipation, and winter long ago lost the charm of novelty. This is the very three a.m. of the calendar.’’

— Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970), American essayist, critic and naturalist. In the 1940s, he lived in Redding, Conn.