FIFTH STUDY
I
I wish I could fitly celebrate the joyousness of the New England
winter. Perhaps I could if I more thoroughly believed in it. But
skepticism comes in with the south wind. When that begins to blow,
one feels the foundations of his belief breaking up. This is only
another way of saying that it is more difficult, if it be not
impossible, to freeze out orthodoxy, or any fixed notion, than it is
to thaw it out; though it is a mere fancy to suppose that this is the
reason why the martyrs, of all creeds, were burned at the stake.
There is said to be a great relaxation in New England of the ancient
strictness in the direction of toleration of opinion, called by some
a lowering of the standard, and by others a raising of the banner of
liberality; it might be an interesting inquiry how much this change
is due to another change,--the softening of the New England winter
and the shifting of the Gulf Stream. It is the fashion nowadays to
refer almost everything to physical causes, and this hint is a
gratuitous contribution to the science of metaphysical physics.
The hindrance to entering fully into the joyousness of a New England
winter, except far inland among the mountains, is the south wind.
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