can stand out of doors, suckling her
infant at an open breast, with the thermometer 40 deg. below zero. As we go
south, we pass the lands of bread and beef, to reach the sultry region
wherein nature provides dates, and so forth. Even in our own range of the
seasons, nature seeks to bind us to her own routine; in winter gives an
appetite for flesh and fat, in summer takes a part of it away. We are not
puppets, and we will not be dictated to; so we stimulate the stomach, and
allow no brute instinct to tamper with our social dietary. We do here, on
a small scale, what is done, on a large scale, by our friends in India,
who pepper themselves into appetite, that they may eat, and drink, and
die. We drink exciting beverage in summer, because we are hot; we drink it
in winter, because we are cold. The fact is, we are driven to such
practices; for if we did not interfere to take the guidance of our diet
out of nature's hands, she would make food do a large portion of the
service which civilization asks of fire and clothing. We should walk about
warm in the winter, cool in the summer, having the warmth and coolness in
ourselves. Now, it is obvious that this would never do. We must be
civilized, or we must not. Is Mr. Sangster to sell tomahawks instead of
canes? Clearly, he is not. We must so manage our homes as to create
unhealthy bodies. If we do not, society is ruined; if we do--and in
proportion as we do so--we become more and more unfit to meet vicissitudes
of weather. Then we acquire a social craving after fires, and coats, and
cloaks, and wrappers, and umbrellas, and cork soles, and muffetees, and
patent hareskins, and all the blessings of this life, upon which our
preservation must depend. These prove that we have stepped beyond the
brute. You never saw a lion with cork soles and muffetees. The tiger never
comes out, of nights, in a great coat. The eagle never soars up from his
nest with an umbrella. Man alone comprehends these luxuries; and it is
when he is least healthy that he loves them best.

In winter, then, it is not diet, and it is not exercise, that shall excite
in us a vital warmth. We will depend on artificial means; we will be
warmed, not from within, but from without. We will set ourselves about a
fire, like pies, and bake; heating the outside first. Where the fire
fails, we will depend upon the dressing-room.

If we have healthy chests, we will encase ourselves in flannel; but if we
happen to have chest com