In the United States, Beard remarks,* the influence of
a dry and changeable climate favours in the North a re-
markable spirit of progress, the love of knowledge, the
agitation of public life and a great desire for novelty ; while
in the South, the moist and but slightly varying climate
develops eminently conservative tendencies, so that
manufacturers in Georgia have great difficulty in finding
a market there for new stuffs or machines ; these are re-
fused, not because they are not good or useful, but because
they are new.
In Germany it has been observed that regions enjoying
a mild and healthy climate, by reason of protecting
mountains, have produced the greatest poets and in
greatest number. The regions of the Main and the Neckar
are renowned for their mild climate, luxuriant vegetation,
and fertility, and the greatest German poets come from
these regions. The Main gave us the greatest of German
poets, Goethe, and many other dii minorum gentium^
genial and noteworthy poets, although beneath that giant,
men such as Klinger; Borne, Riickert, Bettina von
Arnim (^ie Brentano), &c. In the favoured region of the
Neckar were born Schiller and Victor von Scheffel, and
throughout the Swabian land, we meet with many other
great poets and thinkers, such as Wieland, IJhland,
Justinus Kerner, Hauff", Schubart, Morike, G. Schwab,

* American Nervousness^



J



CLIMATIC INFLUENCES ON GENIUS, laj



126 THE MAN OF GENIUS,

Schelling, Muller, Holderlin, and others. That hilly
regions are richer than others in poets is shown in Ger-
many by Hanover (Klopstock, Stolberg, Iffland, Burger,
Leisewitz, Bodenstedt, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the two
Schlegels, &c.) ; by the Rhine provine (Heine, Jacobi, J.
