But the speed with which the germs travel through the air remains a mystery. I remember one flu epidemic that hit New York in the morning and was prevalent in remote country districts in Michigan the following afternoon. Manifestly, therefore, the accursed thing does not depend on the comparatively slow method of transmission from one person to another.
If one can possibly afford the time and money, the best way to rid oneself of the after effects of the flu is to leave the icy North in winter time and travel South. There are many coughs in every carload, but soon after they arrive here they cease.
In fact, if one can afford it, it is a good thing to come South in winter whether one is sick or well. “See America First” applies especially to the winter season. Europe should be visited only in the summer, because no Americans are comfortable in Europe at any other time. George Ade once tried to spend a winter in Venice and he nearly froze. He declared that the next winter he would spend in Duluth, where they have steam heat and he could keep warm.
The intolerable thing about most “winter resorts” in Europe is that they are so much warmer outdoors than in. The American takes a pleasant walk in the mild sunshine, and, his body in an agreeable glow, he enters his hotel room which has the chill of the grave. I know one man who, whenever he entered his room, put on overcoat, fur hat, gloves, arctic overshoes and then sat down to be as comfortable as he could.
One impecunious student who spent the winter at a Continental university in a room where apparently no means of heating had ever been employed told me that he kept warm the entire winter on only one stick of wood. In response to my question, he said that his room was on the fifth story; he would study for ten minutes, then fling the stick out of the window. He ran down five flights of stairs, picked up the stick, ran up the stairs and found that this violent exercise kept him warm for exactly ten minutes, when again he flung the stick out of the window. That was an original method, but it is practicable only for those who are young and vigorous. It would be almost useless for an old lady with angina pectoris.
In the winter season our Southern States, or Arizona, or California are what I especially prescribe. For those who wish eternal summer with all its pleasant heat and the delights of sea-bathing, Southern Florida is the best; for those who are middle-aged and elderly, who wish to play golf and tennis, in crisp autumn-like weather, Georgia is incomparable. Here in Augusta the weather is frequently summer-hued; on this blessed January day, for example, the temperature is 78. But in general, the January and February weather here is like mild October in New England, with gentle days and keen nights, good for sleep.
When I was young very few Northerners went South in winter; all who could afford it went in the summer to the mountains or the sea. But today, when there are many ways of keeping cool in the cities, and when the country club is accessible every afternoon and evening, an immense number of business men stay “on the job” in the summer and take their vacation in the winter.
A perfect climate in the winter lies only twenty-four hours from New York. Furthermore, it is an education for Northern men and women who live in the South for a winter season to become acquainted with our Southern people, “whom to know is to love.” To me, a down-East Yankee, it is a delight to meet these charming, gracious men and women of the South; and it is an especial delight to hear the Southern accent, especially on the lips of lovely women.
I wish I might live one hundred years from now. Then, thanks to the men of science, every year there will come a day in November when a general notice will be given in our New England universities for every member of the faculty and students to be indoors at a certain hour. At the prescribed moment, all the dormitories, lecture halls, offices and laboratories will rise majestically in the air, carrying their human freight. They will sail calmly South, and in a few hours float gently down on a meadow in Georgia or Florida, there to remain until the middle of April.