This cry would, to be sure, hardly have been justified by the picture presented by the low-lying countryside on this third day of Christmas in 1812. Everything lay buried in snow. But even on such a day as this the view from the »Seelower Höhe«, which dominates the Bruch, was not without its charm: over the numerous farmsteads and hamlets set out across the land there drifted trails of smoke that told of human habitations, while the church-towers of the larger villages, only half covered in snow, could be seen glittering for miles in the bright sunshine.
Theodor Fontane: »Before the storm«, 1878