From Absolution: A Question of Conviction:
“Frost had painted Trinity College’s courtyard in crystalline silence. The flagstones of the perimeter path twinkled as though studded with a thousand diamonds, whilst the square central lawn revealed the hurried path of students who had dared cut its corners and in one case completely bisected the grassy expanse in what was incontrovertibly a violation of the head gardener’s strict dictums.
John Dee watched from his chamber window as students hurried from dormitories like moths blown from a dusty cupboard, fluttering against the white expanse, their breath trailing behind them in shimmering plumes.
Winter at Cambridge possessed a particular beauty: ancient stone made more austere by the cold, medieval spires sharp against grey skies, the River Cam moving sluggishly between banks crusted with ice. It was a landscape that invited contemplation, even by a mathematician whose mind preferred the precision found in the geometry of its frost rather than the poetry of its beauty.”