and tell the consul all this. And then our heart
failed us. We decided to write a piece for the paper about it, and if
the consul ever sees it he will be generous and understand. He will know
why, behind the humble facade of his consulate on Washington Square, we
see the heaven-piercing summits of Switzerland rising like a dream, blue
and silvery and tantalizing.

P.S. Since the above we have definitely decided not to go to call on the
Swiss consul. Suppose he were only a vice-consul, a Philadelphia Swiss,
who had never been to Switzerland in his life!

IF MR. WILSON WERE THE WEATHER MAN

My Fellow Citizens: It is very delightful to be here, if I may be
permitted to say so, and I consider it a distinguished privilege to open
the discussion as to the probable weather to-morrow not only, but during
the days to come. I can easily conceive that many of our forecasts will
need subsequent reconsideration, for if I may judge by my own study of
these matters, the climate is not susceptible of confident judgments at
present.

An overwhelming majority of the American people is in favor of fine
weather. This underlying community of purpose warms my heart. If we do
not guarantee them fine weather, cannot you see the picture of what
would come to pass? Your hearts have instructed you where the rain
falls. It falls upon senators and congressmen not only--and for that we
need not feel so much chagrin--it falls upon humble homes everywhere,
upon plain men, and women, and children. If I were to disappoint the
united expectation of my fellow citizens for fine weather to-morrow I
would incur their merited scorn.

I suppose no more delicate task is given any man than to interpret the
feelings and purposes of a great climate. It is not a task in which any
man can find much exhilaration, and I confess I have been puzzled by
some of the criticisms leveled at my office. But they do not make any
impression on me, because I know that the sentiment of the country at
large will be more generous. I call my fellow countrymen to witness that
at no stage of the recent period of low barometric pressure have I
judged the purposes of the climate intemperately. I should be ashamed to
use the weak language of vindictive protest.

I have tried once and again, my fellow citizens, to say to you in all
frankness what seems to be the prospect of fine weather. There is a
compulsion upon one in my position to exercise every effort to see that
as li