Against the weather all 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?