148 NEW ENGLAND WINTER. 



offer us an abundant contrast. An opposi- 

 tion of one hundred and twenty-five degrees 

 between January and July ought to be 

 enough, one would say, to impress even the 

 dullest imagination. 



But winter has its positively favorable 

 side, and is not to be passed off with merely 

 negative compliments ; as if it were like a 

 toothache or a tiresome sermon, some- 

 thing of which the only good word to be 

 said is, that it cannot last forever. It is 

 not to be charged as a defect upon cold 

 weather that some people find it to disagree 

 with them. We might as well chide the 

 hill for putting a sick man out of breath. 

 It is with persons as with plants : some are 

 hardy, others not. The date-palm cannot 

 be made to grow in Massachusetts ; but is 

 Massachusetts to blame for the palm-tree's 

 incapacity? All things of which the spe- 

 cific office is to promote strength (exercise, 

 food, climate) presuppose a degree of 

 strength sufficient for their use. So it is 

 with cold weather. Its proper effect is to 

 brace and invigorate the system ; but there 

 must be vigor to start with. The law 

 is universal : *' To him that hath shall be 

 given." 



