ch in love and
joy.

Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers.

The human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but I have
some excuse for mankind. This world, after all, is not very well adapted
to raising good people. In the first place, nearly all of it is water.
It is much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of
folks. Of that portion which is land not one-eighth has suitable soil
and climate to produce great men and women. You cannot raise men and
women of genius, without the proper soil and climate, any more than you
can raise corn and wheat upon the ice fields of the Arctic sea. You must
have the necessary conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you
must have the soil and food. The obstacles presented by nature must
not be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage,
overcome them. There is upon this world only a narrow belt of land,
circling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of
talent. In the Southern Hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls
mostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our
world has never produced a man or woman of great genius. In the far
north there is no genius--it is too cold. In the far south there is no
genius--it is too warm. There must be winter, and there must be summer.
In a country where man needs no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his
normal condition. Winter is the mother of industry and prudence. Above
all, it is the mother of the family relation. Winter holds in its icy
arms the husband and wife and the sweet children. If upon this earth we
ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at
night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the
family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing
with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or
knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring
blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like
incense from the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house
without feeling that I had received a benediction.

Civilization, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual advancement, are
all flowers that blossom in the drifted snow. I do not know that I can
better illustrate the great truth that only part of the world is adapted
to the production of great men and women than by calling your attention
to