men are Protectionists--all men account it matter
of offense. What say the people of the north? A Highland preacher, one
December Sunday, in the fourth hour of his sermon--For be it known to
Englishmen who nod at church, that in the Highlands, after four good hours
of prayer and psalm, there follow four good hours of sermon. And, _nota
bene_, may it not be that the shade of our King Henry I. does penance
among Highland chapels now, for having, in his lifetime, made one Roger a
bishop because he was expert in scrambling through the services?--A
Highland pastor saw his congregation shivering. "Ah!" he shouted, "maybe
ye think this a cauld place; but, let me tell ye, hell's far caulder!" An
English hearer afterward reproached this minister for his perversion of
the current faith. "Hout, man," said he, "ye dinna ken the Hielanders. If
I were to tell them hell was a hot place, they'd all be laboring to go
there." And that was true philosophy. Mythologies invented in the north,
imagined their own climate into future torture. Above, in the northern
lights, they saw a chase of miserable souls, half starved, and hunted to
and fro by ravens; below, they imagined Nastrond with its frosts and
serpents. Warmth is delightful, certainly. No doubt but sunburnt nations
picture future punishment as fire. Yes, naturally, for it is in the middle
region only that we are not wearied with extremes. What region shall we
take? Our own? When is it not too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, or too
uncertain? Italy? There the sun breeds idle maggots. As for the poet's
paradise, Cashmere, botanists tell us that, although, no doubt, fruits
grow luxuriantly there, they are extremely flavourless. Then it is obvious
that to abuse, antagonise, defy the weather, is one of the established
rights of man. Upon our method of defying it, our health, in some measure,
depends. How is our right to be maintained unhealthily?

Not by blind obedience to nature. We are correcting her, and must not let
her guide us. Nature considers all men savages--and savages they would be,
if they followed her. What is barbarism? Man in a state of nature. Nature,
I say, treats us almost as if we were unable to light fires, or stich for
ourselves breeches. Nature places near the hand of man in each climate a
certain food, and tyrannizes over his stomach with a certain craving.
Whales and seals delight the Esquimaux; he eats his blubber and defies the
frost. So fed, the Esquimaux woman