Part 6

Among vegetables, there are many which resist the strongest frost, and the native trees here have their stems very seldom injured. Most of the herbaceous plants lose their stalks, though their roots remain alive; and some revive at the return of spring even after their roots have been frozen.

Ants and flies, and many other insects, fall asleep in a very slight degree of cold.--Dormice, also, and other animals of the same class, appear as if life was suspended for several months during cold weather, so much so that their heart ceases to beat. The snail and the toad undergo the same stupefying effect, and serpents can be frozen so as to become brittle; if they are broken in that state, they die, but if left in their holes, into which the warmth of spring penetrates slowly, they recover.--It is in the season when their food begins to fail, and the fruits which fattened them disappear, that these creatures conceal themselves in order to submit to this wise law of nature. Those that are deprived of food by the snow covering the ground, sleep till it melts. The white bear lives on the sea shore in summer, and on islands of ice in autumn, and he does not fall asleep till the ice, being thickened and raised too high above the water, is no longer the resort of his chief prey, the seal. His means of obtaining food continuing longer, a much severer cold is requisite to deaden in him the call of seeking it, than in the black bear who devours vegetables; or than in the brown bear who lives on animals who retire earlier than he does.--That hunger should thus give way to sleep, when the cold which benumbs them would starve them by famine, appears ordered by that benevolent Providence, who regulates every part of the universe.

My uncle says that something like this is the case in man; when the cold is very violent he becomes insensible; if one of his limbs should freeze he does not perceive it, but on the contrary fancies himself growing warmer, and feels such a propensity to sleep, that he is angry at being roused. There are continual instances of this in the northern parts of Europe; and the poor frozen person, if indulged by his companions in closing his eyes for a few minutes, seldom opens them again. He does not, however, die immediately, my uncle says: it is even thought by some, that as long as the same temperature continued, he would sleep like the dormouse, deprived of all vital action.

My aunt said, she wondered whether human creatures could be revived, after having been many days frozen, provided similar means were used for their recovery that are employed to restore a frozen limb. Warmth, she said, is applied with the utmost caution, the frozen parts are rubbed with snow and then immersed in water very little warmer than melted ice. The attempt would be worth making, instead of abandoning frozen people to their fate, she thought; but that as to having the power of sleeping like a dormouse or a bear, to whom Providence gives that habit, because they have no means of procuring food, she could not believe that possible. “Man has so many resources, that it was evidently unnecessary to endow him with the capability for sleeping away hunger; but I really believe,” she added, “that there are people of such inveterate indolence, that they would sleep for several months to relieve themselves from all care, if they had the power of voluntary torpidity.”

My uncle replied that doubts have been expressed whether it was in any case a voluntary power; it is asserted that animals never yield to torpidity till driven to it by necessity; and that many of those lethargic animals, while existing during winter on their accumulated fat, which is gradually absorbed into the system, retain the use of their faculties. The cricket is one proof, that animals do not submit to it from choice. This insect passes the hottest part of summer in crevices of walls and heaps of rubbish; about the end of August it quits its summer dwelling, and endeavours to establish itself by the fireside, where the comforts of a warm hearth secure it from torpidity. He then mentioned a colony of crickets which had taken up their abode in a kitchen, where the fire was discontinued from November to June, except one day every six weeks. On these days they were tempted from their hiding place, and continued to skip about and chirp till the following morning, when they again disappeared in consequence of the returning cold. This fact, which he was told by an ingenious friend, shews that in crickets at least torpidity depends on circumstances; and perhaps other sleeping animals, he says, have the same accommodating faculties.

Mrs. P. amused us with some very extraordinary accounts of toads that have been found in the stems of old trees, so that the wood must have grown round them; and even in cavities of stones without the smallest crack or aperture for any communication with the air. My uncle told her that an experiment had not long ago been tried at Paris on that curious subject: a living toad was inclosed in plaster, and at the end of six months it was alive and strong; but some one having suggested that plaster of Paris when dry is more or less porous, the same experiment has been repeated with the addition of a coat of varnish to prevent the admission of air.

Before we separated, my uncle promised to procure for me if possible a torpid dormouse.

_12th._--You must allow, mamma, that my journal never detains you very long on any one subject: from polar bears and frozen limbs we must now skip to tobacco plantations and the West Indies, where you know, Mrs. P. resided some time.

My uncle was inquiring from her this evening about the different modes of culture and the proper soil for tobacco. Few plants, she says, are so much affected by situation; it acquires such different qualities from the soil, that tobacco plants which have been raised in one district, if transplanted into another, though not a quarter of a mile distant, will entirely change their flavour. For instance: the Macabau snuff is made from the leaves of a tobacco plant which takes its name from the parish of Macabau in St. Kitt’s, and there only the real snuff of that name can be prepared. Both plants and seed have been tried in all parts of that island, and in several of the other islands too, but the peculiar scent has not in any instance been retained.

The tobacco of St. Thomas has also a particular smell, which the produce of no other island resembles. It is a curious circumstance that none of it is manufactured there; it is all sent to Copenhagen, and is returned from thence to St. Thomas, and made into snuff. In Barbadoes they make the highly scented rose-snuff, which is sometimes imitated in London by adding attar of rose to fine rapee; but in the island it is made by grating into the snuff a fruit called the rose-apple, which is cultivated for that purpose. It is, however, neither a rose nor an apple, though, when ripe, it somewhat resembles a crab-apple; but it has a stone within, and has at all times a delightful fragrance like the rose. The fruit, when ripe, is gathered, and carefully dried in the shade.

But what interested me much more than all her snuff and tobacco, was the account she gave of some dear little green humming-birds, that used constantly to build amongst the flowers of a convolvolus that grew against the house near her window. She took the greatest pleasure in listening to their little feeble notes, and in watching their rapid motions and all their habits. They were of a smaller species than any of our little Brazilian beauties; and she says the eggs were actually just the size of coriander seeds!

_14th._--As I was curious to see the effect of frost on a very wet soil, Frederick and I went this morning to a spot in the low fields, where we knew it was always swampy. We observed that, as we walked there, the ground crackled, and sunk a little beneath our feet; so Frederick went for a spade, and we gently raised up one of the large lumps between two of the cracks. We found very near the surface a thin crust of ice, and under that a forest of minute columns of ice, standing close together like a fairy palace, with rows in it of clustered pillars; for each column was in reality composed of several lesser ones, not thicker than large pins. You cannot think, mamma, how pretty they were.

When we raised one of these cluster columns with its capital of earth, it separated quite easily from the ground beneath it; but still a thin film of earth remained sticking to the bottom of the column. Frederick brought home a lump of these icy pillars on the spade, and my uncle laid aside his letters, to shew, he said, how much pleasure he felt when he saw us in pursuit of knowledge. As soon as he looked at our pillars, he said, “In that sort of spongy soil where you found them, these icy crystals are formed so immediately under the surface, that only a thin crust of earth remains over their tops; and the film of clay, which sticks to the bottom of the column, shews you that the frost has not penetrated below it, but that the earth beneath continues soft. I see you are looking at those marks across the pillars: break the column at one of the marks.”

I did break one, and found exactly such a film of earth between the two parts of the column, as that which was on the bottom of it. I asked how could earth get into the middle of the crystal?

“Each division,” said my uncle, “shews a separate crystal--each crystal was formed in one night,--and the number of joints or interruptions in the column shew how many nights we have had frost.”

I reckoned four divisions in each column; the uppermost was the longest, the next shorter, and so on; and I pointed out that circumstance to my uncle.

“That,” said he, “is easily accounted for; whatever quantity of moisture there was in the ground at first, there must have been less and less every succeeding night, and the length of the columns therefore diminished each night in the same proportion.”

In a short walk that we afterwards took with my uncle, he observed, as we passed the garden of a small cottage on the border of the forest, that it was late to see carrots still in the ground; and Frederick remarked that the earth looked cracked and swelled round them. My uncle asked leave of the cottager to go into the garden, and there we found that several carrots were actually pushed upwards by the icy columns, the tops of which adhered to the crown of the plant, from which the leaves spring. As the additional joints of the columns had formed, they had acted with so much force, as, in some cases, to break the small fibres by which the root is held in the ground; and in others even the end of the tap root of the carrot was snapped asunder.

I took an opportunity of asking my uncle if there are any spicula in an icicle, which looks so transparent and smooth.

He explained to me, that an icicle assumes its smooth conical form from the gradual congealing of the water as it flows down the surface of the icicle. When broken across, he shewed me that it was somewhat radiated in the structure, as if the spicula arranged themselves round the axis; and he added that if I examined a flake of snow, I might see the same appearance.

I next asked him (indeed he is very patient) if it is the shooting of these spicula that causes the beautiful appearance of leaves and flowers on the windows; he said, yes. But why then are the shapes of the leaves so very various?

“On a calm night,” he replied, “only a close, even net-work is formed; but the least current of air whirls the moisture into an amusing variety of forms. That icy foliage is generally withinside the window, because our breath contains much moist vapour; and as no room that has doors, windows, and chimnies, can be without partial drafts of air, so the spicula are urged together in one place, and irregularly checked in another.”

_15th, Sunday._--Frederick asked my uncle this morning, why the work of the tabernacle was so minutely described in the Bible.

“It is supposed,” he replied, “that Moses has been thus exact in relating how the tabernacle was made, in order to shew that all was done according to God’s directions, detailed in the preceding chapters; and it is therefore that Moses so frequently repeats the expression ‘as the Lord commanded.’

“In reading the account of the Jewish tabernacle, as well as of the various ceremonies of the law, we should always consider for what ends God was pleased to ordain those things. St. Paul informs us that the Jewish law was an imperfect dispensation from the first, and added, that though it was adapted to the weakness of the Jews, its several institutions were intended to typify the more perfect dispensation of the Gospel. Thus, the Jewish high priest was a manifest type of our Saviour; and the ark in the Holy of Holies, with its mercy-seat, from whence God communicated his will, was an emblem of Him from whose mouth we afterwards received the perfect law.

“The religious services ordained, were _sacrifices_ of different kinds, and various _purifications_. All these apparently burdensome rites were, however, aptly significant of many things tending to preserve an inward, true religion; such as the constant acknowledgment that all the blessings we enjoy are the direct gifts of God; 2dly, the feelings of reverence due to his temple, and to all the things appropriated to his service; 3dly, the necessity of curbing our passions, and of atoning for past errors; and further, the impossibility of rooting out our evil habits without vigorous exertions. These and other moral objects, of the same nature, were well understood by the Israelites to be specifically represented in the ceremonial law.

“There were, also, certain solemn _festivals_ ordained as commemorations of signal national mercies and deliverances. Nothing could have been better calculated to keep alive the spirit of gratitude to the bountiful Author of those mercies; and that nothing could be more consistent with the feelings of the human mind, has been exemplified by the practice of every age and nation, in the anniversary observances of religious, national and domestic events.”

_16th._--The frost still continues; and instead of being miserably cold, as I expected, I almost enjoy it. There is not much wind, and the air feels dry and clear. We take long quick walks in the bright part of the day while the sun shines. The rooms are very comfortable, and I find, as my aunt told me, that I am less chilly when I stay at a moderate distance, than when I sit quite close to the fire. In the latter part of the day, if we begin to grow cold after the glow of warmth produced by walking is gone, we take some good house exercise, and that always brings it back.

Frederick asked my uncle to-day, whether it is by the loosening of the earth round the roots of plants as we saw, last Saturday, had happened to the carrots, that frost kills them?

“Perhaps,” said he, “that may have some injurious effect upon tender plants; but it is by bursting the sap vessels that frost does the most mischief.”

“I suppose the sap freezes, and that its expansion bursts the vessels?” I said.

“Just so,” replied my uncle; “this frequently occurs, even in moderate frosts, to tender plants, especially if they are succulent. But in very severe winters even forest trees have suffered. In the great frost of 1739 and 1740, the largest branches were split from end to end, and numbers of the most hardy trees died in consequence.”

All this made me very anxious about my garden and my nice plants; I had already put stable litter on them; and I asked my uncle, if that should be frozen through, what he would recommend me to do.

He advised me to bend some long withies of sallow over them, so as to leave a small space above the surface of the litter, and over the sallows to spread either a mat or fir boughs; and he reminded me that he had explained some days ago the use of this process.

“Besides which,” said Mary, “I believe the stillness of the air under the covering helps to delay the freezing of the moisture in the ground. I recollect that the winter before last, which was very severe, Mamma had fir branches hung on the wall to cover her tender climbing plants, and long stiff straw or fern was lightly strewed round their roots, and they all lived through the winter, and looked healthy and beautiful in summer.”

My uncle told me for my satisfaction, that a long frost, if not very intense, is less injurious to tender plants, than a milder season in which soft weather and frost alternate: in open weather there is a tendency in the sap to rise; and if it is checked by succeeding cold, the sap vessels are injured, and the plant becomes sickly or decays.

“Is that,” said Frederick, “the reason why spring frosts are more hurtful than those of winter?”

“That is the principal reason; but you must also consider that the ground during the previous summer had absorbed a great quantity of heat, which helps to mitigate the winter’s cold: this has been all expended before spring, and therefore the whole force of the cold is then felt.”

Frederick said he remembered hearing Mr. Grant mention last autumn that all the potatoes had been injured by frost in Alney valley near Gloucester, while those on the side of the hill had quite escaped; and as he thought valleys must be warmer than hills, he begged of my uncle to explain the cause.

“Valleys,” he was answered, “are more sheltered from the wind; and the air in them is undoubtedly hotter in the day time than that on exposed high grounds. But in autumn, when the nights become cold, and slight frosts occur on the sides of the hills, the air that is cooled there being heavier than warm air, sinks down into the lower grounds, displaces the warm air, which rises, and accumulates in the bottom of the valley.

“There is another reason why, on clear nights at least, the cold is more severe in low confined places that are sheltered from the wind. The radiation of heat into the sky, which I lately explained to you, reduces their temperature below that of the air, except what is in immediate contact with them; and there being no wind, there can be no circulation of the warmer air to replace the heat they have lost.”

_17th._--Hamlet was mentioned yesterday after dinner; a great deal was said about it, and many different opinions were expressed. At last, to my great vexation, my uncle observed that I took no part in the conversation.

“Come, my little Bertha, we must have your opinion, pro or con; are you one of those who overlook the merits to mark the faults? Tell me what you think.”

This direct question of my uncle’s was really terrible; every creature was silent--and I was obliged to acknowledge that I had only read Hamlet once, not having felt as much interest in it, as in many other tragedies of Shakspeare. There was something which appeared to me a little confused in the whole plot--the ghost, too, disappointed me:--and Hamlet seemed unnecessarily unkind to poor Ophelia--and in short I did not very much like the play, perhaps because I did not understand it.

My uncle praised me for having courage to express honestly what I thought; and he said he would read the play to us, that I might enter into the spirit of it while the conversation was fresh in my recollection. He had taken but little part in the conversation, his object being rather to draw out all our opinions, than to influence them by his own; but as he was going to begin, he said, “It appears to me that Hamlet is not quite suited to very young people: it scarcely comes within the range of their views of the human mind. One of the earliest critics on Shakspeare remarked that Hamlet ‘can only please the wiser sort;’ and I will therefore endeavour, by a few hints, to direct your attention to the main object of the play, and to one or two objects most worth noticing. Unless young people learn how to see and think for themselves, liking or disliking becomes the mere effects of caprice or fashion.

“In this play, Bertha, the object of chief interest is not the plot nor even the events--it is character. The reader easily anticipates the story, and feels no great suspense as to the fate of the king or queen; and though our love of justice naturally makes us rejoice in the punishment of vice, almost all our feelings are absorbed by the character of Hamlet--the impulses of his noble mind, and the indignation he feels at unexpected wickedness.

“The passions of the various persons in this drama are displayed with equal truth and strength. Hamlet’s grief and horror at the death of his father, and at his mother’s baseness, are beautifully and naturally expressed. He feels as a virtuous and honourable man, but he feels also as a son; and in those contending feelings lie the great interest of the piece. Even in the utmost vehemence of his indignation, his manner of treating his mother is remarkable; and, as some writer has observed, it is that which chiefly distinguishes his character from that of Orestes, and shews indeed, in the difference between those two heroes, the opposite principles of the Christian, and the heathen, authors.

“As to his madness, you may perceive that it was feigned in order to prevent all suspicion, on the part of the king, of the enterprise he was engaged in; and to confirm that idea he affects a severity of conduct towards Ophelia in direct opposition to his former sentiments. In the distracted state of his mind, he could not possibly explain to her the cause of his suspended affection. His ruling passion was to think, not to act; and all his principles of action were unhinged by the harassing scene around him. Though he contrived the scene in the play to prove the truth of the ghost’s suggestions, yet he appears to rest satisfied with the confirmation of his suspicions, and declines to act upon them. But, though his character does not shew strength of will, it is every where marked by quick sensibility, and refinement of thought.

“The other characters have also great merit. Ophelia is beautifully painted; her love, her madness, and her death, are described with the truest touches of tenderness and pathos. Polonius is an excellent representation of a large class of men, who talk wisely and act foolishly. The advice he gives his son is sensible, while that to the king and queen respecting Hamlet’s madness is ridiculous; but, the one is the sincere advice of a father, the other that of a meddling and officious courtier; and throughout this part Shakspeare keeps up the nice distinctions between the understanding, the habits, and the motives of mankind.

“The plot of this play may be, as Bertha says, confused, and the catastrophe, as Johnson tells us, not very happily produced by the awkward exchange of weapons; but if you study it as a display of character, you will discover fresh beauties every time you read it; you will perceive that it is of a higher order of dramatic painting than many of Shakspeare’s more popular works, and that it abounds in the most eloquent and striking reflections on human life.”

_18th._--The Lumleys arrived yesterday; my aunt having invited them to meet Mrs. P. I feel very glad, indeed, to see them again, and I am not this time out of humour at interruption from visiters.