EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON TASTES AND APPETITES.
It is worthy of note and may be remarked that one's tastes and
appetites undergo great changes in passing from a high northern clime
to a southern; so much so that to his own surprise one finds himself
literally accomplishing the experience of "loving what he once hated,
and hating what he once loved." For example, buttermilk and clabber
are delicious to the taste there; but few people ever think of them
in the North except in association with food for swine. There, for
convenience of using at meals, the milk fresh from the cow is first
strained into bowls and tumblers, and then set aside and left stand for
the cream to rise, and the hot weather, with or without thunder-storms,
to inspissate the milk into clabber. Then it is brought on as the most
delicious dish on the table, reserved as dessert for the last round,
sprinkled with clean white sugar.
The difference of feeling, taste, appetite and temper we experience
in changing climates is exactly measured by the isothermal difference
of our latitudes. One may have a sweet platonic temper in the North,
but in changing latitude ten or fifteen degrees southward, he will be
surprised to find his temper tending to a change of ten or fifteen
degrees also. And if he be a Christian he will be tempted at times
to think divine grace not sufficient to preserve the peace between
conscience and conduct. The reader will please note that we speak in
these matters not from observation alone but with the authority of
experience also.
We knew a minister of religion there, a recent import from the virtuous
and platonic North, who had not been thoroughly mad for twenty years,
and who possessed no little degree of self-complacency on the score of
an invincible equanimity of temper; and his feeling had the merit of
fact; so much so that once on a time, before his migration southward,
one of his friends, observing his uniform evenness of temper, even in
the midst of great provocation, and becoming irritated at his want of
irritation, said to him: "Tell me, Sir, why is it that you don't get
mad sometimes; your want of temper seems unmanly, unnatural, and savors
of effeminacy, and reminds me to quote Shakespeare on you thus: You
can 'smile, and smile, and be a villain still.' Don't refuse to express
indignation on just occasion, but blow off the pent-up stuff; a little
thunder now and then purifies a sultry atmosphere."
We saw this clerical specimen of "patience on a monument" one day
suddenly lose his virtuous temper, and fall into a paroxysm of madness,
and on slight provocation, quite fearful to behold, in which he poured
out the vials of his wrath upon his friend, to the exhaustion of all
decent epithets. Samson was shorn of his strength and left weak like
another man, self-mortified beyond measure! Much we searched to know
the cause of this sudden transformation, and while we wondered fancy
heard a voice whisper, "The climate, the climate."
From this standpoint we commenced a series of observations, and became
satisfied the fancied suggestion was correct. We found by pushing
inquiry far enough that church members were considered quite excusable
in the use of profane language when driving ox or mule teams. The
offense was not regarded as deserving severe reprimand or expulsion
from the church. A more puritanic style of Christian morals would not
allow the excuse to be carried to such a degree of license, for it
sternly insists that the Christian should be master, and not subject,
at the hour of trial, and will scarcely allow that circumstances may be
reckoned in the moral count to palliate offenses.
Doubtless the standard of moral sentiment with the public in gross is
lower in Texas than elsewhere in the South, because, forsooth, it is
a newer country; and in this respect partakes of the free and easy
characteristics common to all new countries in their pioneer life.
Besides, it was originally settled by an Anglo-American element, called
in the expressive parlance of those days "renegade Americans," from
the "States," "refugees from justice" many of them, smart, shrewd and
unscrupulous, whose sons are now on the stage of action. This was
the element which, during the late war, found an opportunity for the
gratification of its native instincts, and dominated everything, and
inaugurated and kept alive a perfect reign of terror in the absence
of the better class of citizens at the seat of war. Half a dozen of
these desperadoes could intimidate and plunder a town without let or
hindrance; and if any one objected or offered resistance he was shot
down like a dog, and nothing said or done about it. Eight or ten of
them entered our store one day, in the summer of 1863, and in our
presence helped themselves to suits of clothing, boots and shoes, hats
and caps, taking from six to eight hundred dollars' worth, in gold.
Some of them duplicated and triplicated the robberies. One of them
walked up to us and flourishing a six-shooter across the counter, said:
"If you say a word there is what will make daylight shine through your
d--d Yankee carcass." The situation was not pleasant at all, but there
was no relief. They walked off with their plunder, and we thought as
they went, "good riddance to bad rubbish;" but no, this was not the
end of the matter, for on the principle that man never forgives whom
he has injured, we had to meet a personal challenge to a duel from the
leader of the gang, the one who had threatened to make daylight shine
in a disagreeable way. The challenge was given because we had said to
a lady accomplice of theirs, who was in the store after the robbery,
ostensibly to purchase goods, but really to draw us out in some
unguarded remark that could be used as an excuse for an attack on us:
"That in ordinary times, their conduct would be considered no less a
crime than robbery." Our challenger said he was ready to stake his life
in vindication of his conduct, and he turned pale and trembled like an
aspen leaf. While he was excited we kept cool, and suggested to him
that perhaps his information about what had been said was not quite
correct, and even if it were, and we should fight over the matter, and
one of us should have the satisfaction of carrying the other's blood
on his soul to the judgment, we did not see how that would change the
character of their original conduct. That if he were reasonable the
matter could be adjusted between us peaceably. And on appealing to his
better judgment, he conceded we were right, and said in conclusion:
"Mr. North, though you are from our enemies' country I believe you are
a gentleman, and hereafter I am your friend."
"Well," said we, "how much better such a termination to a bad matter
than to make targets of ourselves in a duel. And now, my good fellow,
let by-gones be by-gones, and may we have a better understanding in the
future."
"Agreed," he said, and we parted.
We met casually afterward, and he minded the treaty.