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Oh yes! They will recover their sanity.
They will perceive under what artificial and cramping conditions, under
what false standards, they have been living; they will realize the
advantages of a climate where nature meets you half-way. I know little
of England, but the United States are pretty familiar to me; the two
climates, I imagine, cannot be very dissimilar. That a man should wear
himself to the bone in the acquisition of material gain is not pretty.
But what else can he do in lands adapted only for wolves and bears?
Without a degree of comfort which would be superfluous hereabouts, he
would feel humiliated. He must become strenuous if he wishes to rise
superior to his inhospitable surroundings."
"We think a good deal of strenuousness," objected the bishop.
"Have you not noticed that whenever anything, however fantastic, is
imposed upon men by physical forces, they straightway make a god of it?
That is why you deify strenuousness. You dare not forgo it. The Eskimo
doubtless deifies seal-blubber; he could not survive without it.


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