"The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February"
About this Quote
New England doesn’t get indicted for its famous moral rigidity; it gets indicted for its weather. Krutch’s line works because it flips a well-worn cultural stereotype into a punchline with teeth. “Puritanism” is the usual shorthand for the region’s perceived joylessness: self-denial, suspicion of pleasure, a social climate of quiet judgment. Krutch waves that away and replaces it with “February,” a month that feels like Puritanism made meteorological - all discipline, no reward, with the faint sense you’re being tested.
The intent is comic, but not throwaway. By calling February the “most serious charge,” Krutch borrows the language of a courtroom to elevate a seasonal complaint into a civic grievance. That mock-formality is the engine of the wit: it suggests that the real burden of place isn’t ideology, it’s lived experience. You can argue with a theology; you can’t negotiate with sleet and early darkness.
The subtext is also environmentalist in the broad, older sense: human culture is shaped less by lofty values than by daily conditions. New England’s reputation for austerity starts to look like a rational adaptation to months when the world is literally less hospitable. February becomes a condensed symbol of deprivation after the holidays, when winter’s romance has worn off and spring is still a rumor.
In Krutch’s era, before air travel and climate-controlled everything softened regional edges, that bite landed harder. The joke flatters locals (yes, we endure) and warns outsiders (this isn’t just quaint history; it’s a weather system that gets inside your character).
The intent is comic, but not throwaway. By calling February the “most serious charge,” Krutch borrows the language of a courtroom to elevate a seasonal complaint into a civic grievance. That mock-formality is the engine of the wit: it suggests that the real burden of place isn’t ideology, it’s lived experience. You can argue with a theology; you can’t negotiate with sleet and early darkness.
The subtext is also environmentalist in the broad, older sense: human culture is shaped less by lofty values than by daily conditions. New England’s reputation for austerity starts to look like a rational adaptation to months when the world is literally less hospitable. February becomes a condensed symbol of deprivation after the holidays, when winter’s romance has worn off and spring is still a rumor.
In Krutch’s era, before air travel and climate-controlled everything softened regional edges, that bite landed harder. The joke flatters locals (yes, we endure) and warns outsiders (this isn’t just quaint history; it’s a weather system that gets inside your character).
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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