2002-12-30 5:37 p.m.
An Early Californian Opinion on the Cold
This is from the Oakland Tribune, March 23, 1910, page 8.
"There is no possible justification of cold. It does not do a single praiseworthy thing except preserve. And what wants to be preserved in a state of agonizing chill? Cold prevents action, sleep, circulation, conversation--all the things that make life charming. All the good things in life are warm, welcomes, muffs, summer, friends, enthusiasm, food, open fires, feelings, and foot warmers. It is as much better to be too hot than too cold as it is to be partly dissolved rather than wholly petrified. Heat is friendly even while it is overdoing itself. When at the last stage of limpness one remembers it is only caused by excess of geniality on the part of the sun. Intense heat would never drive one to any desperate act. One would not commit murder for a fan or a jug of claret cup but cold hardens all one's feelings and if one is chilled through and through one would by guile and deceit deprive the sweetest old lady in the world of her seat by the fire, or if the situation seems to require it, turn her into fuel when all else had been burned.