the climate suspends the very powers of the understanding; what then
must become of those of the imagination? Those who expect to see

"A new Athens rising near the pole,"

will find themselves extremely disappointed. Genius will never
mount high, where the faculties of the mind are benumbed half the year.

'Tis sufficient employment for the most lively spirit here to
contrive how to preserve an existence, of which there are moments that
one is hardly conscious: the cold really sometimes brings on a sort of
stupefaction.

We had a million of beaux here yesterday, notwithstanding the severe
cold: 'tis the Canadian custom, calculated I suppose for the climate,
to visit all the ladies on New-year's-day, who sit dressed in form to
be kissed: I assure you, however, our kisses could not warm them; but
we were obliged, to our eternal disgrace, to call in rasberry brandy as
an auxiliary.

You would have died to see the men; they look just like so many
bears in their open carrioles, all wrapped in furs from head to foot;
you see nothing of the human form appear, but the tip of a nose.

They have intire coats of beaver skin, exactly like Friday's in
Robinson Crusoe, and casques on their heads like the old knights errant
in romance; you never saw such tremendous figures; but without this
kind of cloathing it would be impossible to stir out at present.

The ladies are equally covered up, tho' in a less unbecoming style;