102 
THE MOTHER OF INVENTION. 
lodged in the heart of a fruit. Others (bees and ants) form a protecting 
community; but the immense majority are born solitary and naked. 
Some of our readers, always well clothed and warmed, will say, I am 
sure, that cold is an excellent thing, which stimulates the appetite and 
strengthens the frame. But those who have been poor will very well 
• 
understand my preceding observations. For my part, recollections of 
my childhood convince me that cold is, in all truth, a punishment; you 
cannot get accustomed to it; its prolongation does not render its effect 
less severe. How keen a joy I felt (in rigorous winters) at each thaw 
which released me from my agitated, terrified, and uneasy condition, 
and secured the happy re-establishment of the internal harmony! 
I do not deny, however, that cold may not be a powerful tonic, 
which sharpens and braces up the mind, and draws from it fresh 
efforts of invention. Cold, as well as hunger—and perhaps hunger 
especially—is the great stimulus of the arts; hunger weakens, cold 
strengthens. 
It is the powerful inspirer of infinite swarms of those chilly crea¬ 
tures which seek before all things, as soon as they are born, the means 
of covering themselves. They are not in want of food; nature has 
everywhere prepaied for them an ample banquet. All the vegetable 
kingdom, and a great part of the animal, are at their disposal; they 
might live tender and indolent, as the child sleeps at its ease on the 
maternal placenta which nourishes its slothfulness. But the cold irri¬ 
tates them; the cold damp air deadens and paralyzes their entrails ; 
finally, the light wounds them. They can enjoy no repose until they 
have secured a shelter. In the lowest grade of life the smallest 
grub becomes an artist, and by weaving, and spinning, and carving has 
soon contrived a robe, and, as with a second skin over her too sensi¬ 
tive epidermis, has covered her suffering nakedness. Happy she who 
finds herself placed at the outset on a prepared soil, a cloth of warm 
wool, a fine fur: she does not fail to make in hot haste, according to 
our human fashion, a pretty paletot fitted to her figure; which, never¬ 
theless, she leaves a little loose, like economical mothers for their young 
growing children, in whose case the garb too large to-day will be tight 
and well-fitting to-morrow. 
