Question

Read these lines from White Fang by Jack London:
Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness.
What does the setting suggest in these lines?
the harshness of nature
the beauty of winter
the beauty of silence
the beauty of nature