Martin Birck's Youth by Hjalmar Soderberg

He turned into Long Western Street. On snowy days such as this he nearly always took that street, because in the narrow winding rift between the tall old houses one was as if half indoors, in the lee of the worst wind gusts.

"Winter, cold. Strange there are people who assert that they like this weather. Heringslake, who has a heart in his breast and loves his native land, regards cold as preferable to heat. But when it's cold, he always puts on furs. The conception of hell as a very warm place clearly originated in the torrid zone. If a northerner had invented it, it would have been contrariwise a fearful place for draughts, the breeding ground of influenza and chronic snuffles. But such as the climate is, I have got used to it, and it has possibly done me excellent service of which I myself am not aware. Provisions are laid on ice in order to keep; everything is preserved longer in cold. Why not human beings as well? I once longed to be consumed in the flame of a great passion. It never came, whether because I was not deserving of so great an honor, or whatever the reason may have been. But now, afterwards, I have begun to misdoubt that such a conflagration may rather be a bonfire to amuse the spectators than any real enjoyment for the chief actor. Fire is, in any case, distinctly not my element. If a real spring sun were ever to come into my life, I should go rotten at once from being unused to the climate."