Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 20.djvu/27



and Finland make up a kingdom two hundred leagues broad, and three hundred long. This country reaches from the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, or thereabouts, to the seventieth. It lies in a very severe climate, which is hardly ever softened either by the return of spring or of autumn. The winter prevails there nine months in the year. The scorching heat of the summer succeeds immediately to the excessive cold of the winter. The frost begins in the month of October, without any of those imperceptible gradations, which in other countries usher in the seasons, and render the alteration more agreeable. Nature, in return, has given to this cold climate a clear sky and a pure air. The almost constant heat of the summer produces flowers and fruits in a very short time. The long nights of the winter are tempered by the evening and morning twilights, which last for a greater or a less time, in proportion as the sun is nearer to, or farther removed from Sweden; and the light of the moon, unobscured by clouds, and increased by the reflection of the snow that covers the ground, and frequently by the aurora borealis, makes it as