The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-02-04
Does weather Control the Mind i.
Fron the London Spectator.

AFOtfA Ate 4zOlASLUh OpeC2QLOT.
''1t is the hard gray weather" sings
Kingsley, in one of the very best of his
sliEhter pieces, "breeds hard English
men" and the verse expresses one of
the most popular of English super
stitions. It is not pleasant
idea, nevertheless, that the worse
the weather the more manly one
ought to be, particularly as one isn't,
and we feel very much inclined to
question whether it has any true or
solid foundation. There is a confusion
1t 1t, we fancy, between the effects of
bad weather and the effects of that
strife with difficulties, when carried on
Tor generations, which Undoubtedly
strengthens the character of any race
submitted to it. We English are ali ac-
oustomed TO say, with that love for
avenging oneself on nature which is so
permanent characteristic of human
beings, that the deniZens of bad eli
mates are always stronger than the
races which 4'bask' in or otherwise en-
JOY sunshine, but it is not true. The
great races of earth, the races which
thought and fought and taught
with permanent effect, have lived
in almost all climates except the
very cold. Most of our ideas of theolo-
Sy, come from II small Knot of clans be-
longing TO one race which lived in The
hot valleys and on the vine growing
hill-sides of the seaboard of Syria,
where weather, at all events, is not
hard. Grapes of Eschol dislike gray
skies. Half our knowledge comes
from the inhabitants of islands and
small peninsnlas bathed in the eternal
SUMMER OF the Eastern Mediterranean,
where the olive grew without cultiva-
ton, and sky-colored eyes meant eyes
OF blue. The strongest race which
ever lived, the true Roman patrician,
lived under sky for which English
men crave in vain, a sky which for ten
months in the year is the very reverse
of gray, which is either blue, deep, per-
feet blue, yielding enjoyment through
its mere clearness, or blazing like mol
ten brass. We never could quite make
out, indeed, in n proper theoretic way,
what the Roman hadto fight in the way
of nature in such a climate and on
such soil as his; but, of course, he had
something,or what would Mr. Kingsley
do? The most energetic of Asiatfc
races, the Arab, was produced under a
sky which knows not of gray, which is
every color but gray, vi
cious sky, a malignant sky,
scorching the souls out OF men, but
always, if you only look up, pos
sessIng in calmness its own blue beauty.
The only climate on earth exactly like
that of England, or differing from 1t
only in being slightly more equal, that
of Tasmania, produced the lowest race
of savageS who ever came in contact
with civilized man and died of the
meeting. On the other side of the At
lantic our race grows great in all eli
mates; produces under the hard gray
weather Yankees proper, under a really
beautiful climate the men of the West,
and under tropical skies the South
erners, whose special fault is certainly
not want Of grit" The theory of
grayness seems 10 be as baseless as the
counter theory about light. For all a
pTiOTi reasons light ought to influence
brain, but it does not, the English being
in acuteness even, and certainly in in
ductive power, more than a match for
Bengalees, and inferior to Athenians,
with their yet more cloudleSS atmos-
phere. Indeed, we question if mere
of sky does even produce for
titude, the hardness" Kingsley writes
about, whether the Southern Asiatic
has not more of that quality about than
the Northern. Strength ne has not,
but Bengalee will bear unmoved tor
lures which would drive a Calmuck
mad, or induce him to forswear
to an unlimited extent.
Iucifers placed under a
Malay's nails would not induce
him TO deny his creed or give up plan
upon which he had resolved, and they
would induce most Englishmen. 1t is
Lne COnUssL Win OlEnculLleS, ana eSpeCI-
ally natural difficulties, which, apart
from -vexed questions as to the influ-
ence OF race" properly SO called,
makes people, no t the contest with
and even that axiom is not in
true. What had the Athenian
TO fight in particular except the sea,
and that sea the Mediterranean?- Tor
what had the Roman7 An Icelander has
twice as much to contend with, or Ma
lay, and developed just nothing at all,
any more than the Firms did, who, in
the possession of hard, gray weather,
are richer than all mankind, except the
islanders of Skye, who also have done
II is quite vexatious TO hear
an argument SO palpably false as
Kipgsley's pressed, just when every
body Is suffering from the hard gray
weather he is SO fond of. We do mot be-
lieve London is bit the better for the
weather of the past fortnight, hard,
gray weather of the worst kind, snow,
and rain, and wind, and all climatic
unpleasantness having been, ceaseless
IN their action. On the contrary, we be-
lieve it is good deal worse. ~ o..
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