In City and Country 297 



department of Savoy or Otis would be as efficient 

 as ever in such a case, in fact, the snow might be 

 a great help, as supplying the lack of water. Thus 

 there could not be felt on the hills the sense of 

 oppressiveness, the unnatural burden, which has 

 weighed upon the citizens of places where men 

 have crowded their industries and dwellings to 

 gether. The paralysis of our civilization to so 

 extraordinary an extent is appalling to us. We 

 do not live in spiritual essentials, which are the 

 same now as ever, but in practical circumstances, 

 and these being changed, it seems as if the world 

 were awry. 



The country has the advantage of the city, too, 

 in the after part of the storm, the clearing up of 

 obstacles and renewal of communications. The 

 winter is always in considerable measure a period 

 of seclusion and waiting for release, and the closer 

 imprisonment of a big March storm is not so 

 much to the farmers. In the city, where life in 

 winter is the briskest, to be reduced to mere hous 

 ing is unendurable. And when the storm is over, 

 it is a desperate job to break out again even for 

 merely interior uses. The sidewalks have to be 

 painfully shoveled out into the streets, making 

 them worse than in the first place, and then the 

 superfluous snow must be sledded off, and a day s 

 hard work only clears a few rods. But the farmer 



