It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.

Burroughs personifies an unseen natural agency—something like vitality, energy, or “spirit”—as the animating principle behind winter’s most delicate phenomena. By calling it the “life” of crystal and the “architect” of the snowflake, he frames cold not as mere absence of heat but as a creative force that shapes matter into intricate forms. The “fire of the frost” and “soul of the sunbeam” fuse opposites (cold/heat, frost/light) to suggest a single continuum of natural power. The closing sentence grounds the metaphors in sensory experience: the bracing winter air feels charged with this formative energy.