could once be warm —really warm without
effort—in or out of doors? Was it any
better in divine Florence than on the chill Riviera?
Northern Italy was blanketed with snow, the Apennines
were white, and through the clean streets of the beautiful
town a raw wind searched every nook and corner, penetrating
through the thickest of English wraps, and harder to
endure than ingratitude, while a frosty mist enveloped
all. The traveler forgot to bring with him the
contented mind of the Italian. Could he go about
in a long cloak and a slouch hat, curl up in doorways
out of the blast, and be content in a feeling of his
own picturesqueness? Could he sit all day on
the stone pavement and hold out his chilblained hand
for soldi? Could he even deceive himself, in
a palatial apartment with a frescoed ceiling, by an
appearance of warmth in two sticks ignited by a pine
cone set in an aperture in one end of the vast room,
and giving out scarcely heat enough to drive the swallows
from the chimney? One must be born to this sort
of thing in order to enjoy it. He needs the poetic
temperament which can feel in January the breath of
June. The pampered American is not adapted to
this kind of pleasure. He is very crude, not to
say barbarous, yet in many of his tastes, but he has
reached one of the desirable things in civilization,
and that is a thorough appreciation of physical comfort.
He has had the ingenuity to protect himself in his
own climate, but when he travels he is at the mercy
of customs and traditions in which the idea of physical
comfort is still rudimentary. He cannot warm himself
before a group of statuary, or extract heat from a
canvas by Raphael, nor keep his teeth from chattering
by the exquisite view from the Boboli Gardens.
The cold American is insensible to art, and shivers
in the presence of the warmest historical associations.
It is doubtful if there is a spot in Europe where
he can be ordinarily warm in winter. The world,
indeed, does not care whether he is warm or not, but
it is a matter of great importance to him. As
he wanders from palace to palace—and he
cannot escape the impression that nothing is good
enough for him except a palace—he cannot
think of any cottage in any hamlet in America that
is not more comfortable in winter than any palace
he can find. And so he is driven on in cold and
weary stretches of travel to dwell among the French
in Algeria, or with the Jews in Tunis, or the Moslems
in Cairo. He longs for warmth as the Crusader
longed for Jerusalem, but not short of Africa shall
he find it. The glacial period is coming back
on Europe.
The citizens of the great republic have a reputation for inordinate self-appreciation, but we are thinking that they undervalue many of the advantages their ingenuity has won. It is admitted that they are restless, and must always be seeking something that they have not at home. But aside from their ability to be warm in any part of their own country at any time of the year, where else can they travel three