Matt drew on his
mittens, looking down upon him pityingly the while, and went out,
closing the door softly behind him.
CHAPTER XX
Where nature shows the rough hand, the sons of men are apt to respond
with kindred roughness. The amenities of life spring up only in mellow
lands, where the sun is warm and the earth fat. The damp and soggy
climate of Britain drives men to strong drink; the rosy Orient lures to
the dream splendors of the lotus. The big-bodied, white-skinned
northern dweller, rude and ferocious, bellows his anger uncouthly and
drives a gross fist into the face of his foe. The supple
south-sojourner, silken of smile and lazy of gesture, waits, and does
his work from behind, when no man looketh, gracefully and without
offence. Their ends are one; the difference lies in their ways, and
therein the climate, and the cumulative effect thereof, is the
determining factor. Both are sinners, as men born of women have ever
been; but the one does his sin openly, in the clear sight of God; the
other--as though God could not see--veils his iniquity with shimmering
fancies, hiding it like it were some splendid mystery.
These be the ways of men, each as the sun shines upon him and the wind
blows against him, according to his kind, and the seed of his father,
and the milk of his mother. Each is the resultant of many forces which
go to make a pressure mightier than he, and which moulds him in the
predestined shape.
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