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To Miss Eliza Scudder.

Wayland, 1868.
In our climate what a misnomer it is to call this season spring! very much like calling Calvinism religion. I don't care, I insist upon being glad that I was born in Massachusetts. As for anybody that prefers to have been born among mosquitoes and copperheads down South, or where the sun sets behind the Golden Gate, why let them go and be born again. I, being rather a Puritanic person, stand by old Massachusetts, [197] if she is covered with snow in April. To speak seriously, I do think our climate is changing. For many years I have noticed that winter extends farther into spring than it used to do when I was young. They say that tusks of ivory dug up in Onalaska prove that region to have once been in the tropical zone. If so, perhaps we also are steering for the North Pole. It is comforting to know that I shall not be on board when the old ship Massachusetts anchors among the icebergs. That “precession of the equinoxes” is a mysterious business. What it is going to do with this earth of ours I don't know.

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