378 TWENTY-SEVENTH EVENING. descending the mountain are melting with heat; se that they can scarcely bear any clothes upon them; while they who are ascending, shiver with cold, and wrap themselves up in the warmest garments they have.†“ How strange this is,’â€â€™ cried William. “ What can be the reason of it Pâ€â€™ | “Tt is,†replied his father, “a striking stance of the power of habit over the body. The cold 1s so in- tense on the tops of these mountains, that it 1s as much as travellers can do to keep themselves from being frozen to death. Their bodies, therefore, be- come so habituated to the sensation of cold, that every diminution of it as they descend seems to them a degree of actual heat; and when they have got half way down, they feel as though they were quite in a sultry climate. On the other hand, the valleys at the ‘oot of the mountains are so excessively hot, that the body becomes relaxed, and sensible to the slightest degree of cold; so that when a traveller ascends from them towards the hills, the middle regions seem quite inclement from their coldness.†7 “And is the same change,â€â€™ rejoined William, “al- ways perceptible in crossing high mountains ?â€â€™ “It is,†returned his father, “in a degree propor- tioned to their height, and the time taken in crossing them. Indeed, a short time is sufficient to produce similar effects. Let one boy have been playing at roll- ing snowballs, and another have been roasting himself before a great fire, and let them meet in the porch of the house ;—if you ask them how they feel, I will answer for it you will find them as different in their accounts as the travellers on the Andes. But this is only one example of the operation of a universal prin- ciple belonging to human nature; for the power of habit is the same thing, whatever be the circumstance which calls it forth, whether relating to the mind or the body. “You may cousider the story you have been read-