charitable and devout. They must be pleasing to their Creator, I say to myself, unless He is hard to please. Sometimes I go so far as to think that possibly a man may be religious without knowing even his own religion. Let us hope so. Otherwise, we of the laity are assuredly undone.
And what is true of creeds and churches is true likewise of countries and climates. We grow wise by comparison of one thing with another, not by direct and exclusive contemplation of one thing by itself. Human knowledge is relative, not absolute, and the inveterate stayer at home is but a poor judge of his own birthplace.
All this I have in lively remembrance as I sit down to record some impressions of our New England winter. With what propriety do I discourse upon winter in Massachusetts, having never passed one anywhere else? Had I spent a portion of my life where roses bloom the year round, then, to be sure, I might assume to say something to the purpose about snow and ice.
But if the "tillers of paper" wrote only of such topics as they possessed full and accurate acquaintance with, how would the
Scripture be fulfilled? "Of making many books" there surely would be an end, and that speedily. I venture to think, moreover, that a man may never have set foot beyond the boundaries of his native city, and yet prove a reasonably competent guide to its streets and by-ways. His information is circumscribed, but such as it is, it is precise and to the point. Though he assure you soberly that the principal thoroughfare of his tenth-rate town is more magnificent than any in New York or London, you may none the less depend upon him to pilot you safely out of its most intricate and bewildering corner. Indeed, he might fairly claim membership in what is, at present, one of the most flourishing of intellectual guilds: I mean the sect of the specialists; whose creed is that one may know something without knowing everything, and who choose for their motto: Remain ignorant in order that you may learn.
In this half-developed world there is nothing so perfect as to be past a liability to drawbacks and exceptions. The best of beef is poisonous to some eaters, and strawberries are an abomination to others; and
in like manner there is no climate, nor any single feature of any climate, but by some constitutions it will be found unendurable. The earth is to be populated throughout, so it would appear; and to that end sundry necessary precautions have been taken against human inertia. A certain proportion of boys must be born with a propensity for wandering and adventure; and the most favored spot must not contain within itself all conceivable advantages. If everybody could stand the rigors of New England weather, what would become of the rest of the continent?
Unless I misjudge myself, I should soon tire of perpetual summer. Like the ungrateful Israelites with the manna, my soul would loathe such light bread. To my provincial mind, as I believe, nothing else could ever quite take the place of a rotation of the seasons. There should be rain and shine, cold and heat. A change from good weather to bad, and back again, is on the whole better than unbroken good weather. Dullness to set off brightness, night to give relief to the day, such is the wise order of nature; and I do not account it altogether a token
of depravity that honest people, who love a paradox without knowing it, find perfection, of no matter how innocent a sort, just a little wearisome. Therefore, I say, let me have a year made up of well-defined contrasts; in short, a New England year, of four clearly marked seasons.
It is often alleged, I know, that we really have only three seasons; that winter leaps into the lap of summer, and spring is nothing but a myth of the almanac makers. I shall credit this story when I am convinced of the truth of another statement, equally current and equally well vouched, that every successive summer is the hottest (or the coldest) for the last twenty-five years. As there is no subject so much talked about as the weather, so, almost of course, there is none so much lied about. Winter claims most of March, as the astronomers give it leave to do, I believe; but April and May, despite a snow-storm or two in the former, and a torrid week in the latter, are neither summer nor winter, but spring; somewhat fickle, it is true, more or less uncertain of itself, but still retaining its personal identity.