Few are placed in
a situation so gloomy and distressful, as not to see
every day beings yet more forlorn and miserable,
from whom they may learn to rejoice in their own lot.
No inconvenience is less superable by art or
diligence than the inclemency of climates, and therefore
none affords more proper exercise for this philosophical
abstraction. A native of England, pinched
with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection
for his own country by suffering his imagination
to wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among
the woods that are always green, and streams that
always murmur; but if he turns his thought towards
the polar regions, and considers the nations to whom
a great portion of the year is darkness, and who
are condemned to pass weeks and months amidst
mountains of snow, he will soon recover his
tranquillity, and, while he stirs his fire, or throws his
cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to Providence,
that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia.
The barrenness of the earth and the severity of
the skies in these dreary countries, are such as
might be expected to confine the mind wholly to the
contemplation of necessity and distress, so that the
care of escaping death from cold and hunger, should
leave no room for those passions which, in lands of
plenty, influence conduct, or diversify characters;
the summer should be spent only in providing for
the winter, and the winter in longing for the summer.
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