INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. , 411 



In contrast with these results, place now those of a genial 

 climate, which never knew the rigors of a northern winter. In 

 a country where common field work may be done throughout the 

 year, there comes no necessity that specific duties should be done 

 at a given time. The maxim is, "Never do to-day what can be 

 put off" till to-morrow." Hence under the influence of such a 

 climate man becomes indolent and careless, and cultivates no 

 systematic and well regulated habits of labor. Nature feeds him 

 with a lavish hand, and thus relieves him of the necessity of pru- 

 dent forethought, and so he comes to act from momentary impulse 

 rather than from reason. The conditions of the climate being 

 such that much of his life can be passed under the open heavens, 

 he receives an infinite variety of impressions from external nature, 

 but none leave any permanent mark upon his brain, as compared 

 with the results which, in the seclusion of his winter home, the 

 northern man deduces from his observations of nature. Inclined 

 to indulge in endless speculations, where he can enjoy in a life of 

 ease and inactivity, man will deal superficially with them all, and 

 follow none to its logical conclusions. Quick in his perceptions, 

 volatile, unreflective, he becomes disinclined to form habits of 

 continuous mental application. When a tree will afford ample 

 shelter at night for the man who may roam all day, he will form 

 slender attachments to the hearth-stone and the family, so dear to 

 man in his well-anchored home in the colder north, hence he will 

 manifest but little regard for fixed laws and well established forms 

 of government. 



Admitting that the type of the northern man known as the 

 Yankee has proved himself proverbially a wanderer, he has not 

 found the globe large enough to allow him to travel so far as to 

 snap the cord that binds him to the spot of his birth. 



Cold has produced a singleness of heart in Teutonic which con- 

 trasts markedly with the character of the Latin races. Exact, 

 punctual, precise in dealings, lovers of truth, sparing in promises, 

 the nations of northern Europe have ever been distinguished from 

 those in the southern half of that country, which have proved 

 themselves more polite than true. Madame de Stael says the 

 English imitated Napoleon because they found out how to unite 

 success with honesty. 



Like the luxuriance of their semi-tropical vegetation, the lan- 

 guage of a people in a warm climate will always be found to be 

 extravagantly redundant, and if their country be a level one, their 



