esome climate which I
believe are universally received as such. The mortality among children
throughout the whole country is a dark feature of life in the United
States.... Wherever we went in the North we heard of the "lung fever" as
a common complaint, and children seemed to be as liable to it as grown
persons.

The climate is doubtless chiefly to blame for all this, and I do not see
how any degree of care could obviate much of the evil. The children must
be kept warm within-doors; and the only way of affording them the range
of the house is by warming the whole, from the cellar to the garret, by
means of a furnace in the hall. This makes all comfortable within; but,
then, the risk of going out is very great. There is far less fog and
damp than in England, and the perfectly calm, sunny days of midwinter
are endurable; but the least breath of wind seems to chill one's very
life. I had no idea what the suffering from extreme cold amounted to
till one day, in Boston, I walked the length of the city and back again
in a wind, with the thermometer seven degrees and a half below zero. I
had been warned of the cold, but was anxious to keep an appointment to
attend a meeting. We put on all the merinoes and furs we could muster,
but we were insensible of them from the moment the wind reached us. My
muff seemed to be made of ice; I almost fancied I should have been
warmer without it. We managed getting to the meeting pretty well, the
stock of warmth we had brought out with us lasting till then. But we set
out cold on our return, and by the time I got home I did not very well
know where I was and what I was about. The stupefaction from cold is
particularly disagreeable, the sense of pain remaining through it, and I
determined not to expose myself to it again. All this must be dangerous
to children; and if, to avoid it, they are shut up through the winter,
there remains the danger of encountering the ungenial spring....

Every season, however, has its peculiar pleasures, and in the retrospect
these shine out brightly, while the evils disappear.

On a December morning you are awakened by the domestic scraping at your
hearth. Your anthracite fire has been in all night; and now the ashes
are carried away, more coal is put on, and the blower hides the kindly
red from you for a time. In half an hour the fire is intense, though, at
the other end of the room, everything you touch seems to blister your
fingers with cold. If you happen t