Many a house in Virginia, let alone the other States farther down the
map, is without a furnace, and winter life in such houses, with their
ineffectual wood fires, is like life in a refrigerator tempered by the
glow of a safety match. As in Italy and Spain, so in the South it is
often warmer outdoors than in; more than once during my southern voyage
I was tempted to resume the habit, acquired in Capri, of wearing an
overcoat in the house and taking it off on going out into the sunshine.
True, in Capri we had roses blooming in the garden on Christmas Day, but
that circumstance, far from proving warmth, merely proved the hardiness
of roses. So, in the far South--excepting Florida and perhaps a strip of
the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama--the blooming of
flowers in the winter does not prove that "Palm Beach suits" and panama
hats invariably make a desirable uniform.
Furthermore, I am inclined to believe that because some southern winter
days are warm and others cold, a Northerner feels cold in the South
more than he feels the corresponding temperature at home--on somewhat
the principle which caused the Italians who went with the Duke of the
Abruzzi on his polar expedition to withstand cold more successfully than
did the Scandinavians.
Of the southern summer I have no experience, but I have been repeatedly
assured that certain of the southern beaches are nearly, if not quite,
as comfortable in hot weather as are those of New Jersey or Long Island,
while in numerous southern mountain retreats one may be fairly cool
through the hot months--a fact which spells fortune for the hotel
keepers of such high-perched resorts as Asheville, White Sulphur
Springs, and the Hot Springs of Virginia, who have their houses full of
Northerners in winter and Southerners in summer.
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