oyments. They influence our business
prosperity directly, or indirectly, through our near or remote dependence
upon others. They limit our pleasures and amusements--they control the
realities of to-day, and the anticipations of to-morrow. None can
prudently disregard them; few can withhold from them a constant attention.
Scientific men, and others, devote to them daily hours of careful
observation and registration. Devout Christians regard them as the
special agencies of an over-ruling Providence. The prudent, fear their
sudden, or silent and mysterious changes; the timid, their awful
manifestations of power; and they are, to each and all of us, ever present
objects of unfailing interest.

This _interest_ finds constant expression in our intercourse with each
other. A recent English writer has said: "The germ of meteorology is, as
it were, innate in the mind of every Englishman--the weather is his first
thought after every salutation." In the qualified sense in which this was
probably intended, it is, doubtless, equally true of us. Indeed, it is
often not only a "first thought" _after_ a salutation, but a part of the
salutation itself--an offspring of the same friendly feeling, or a part of
the same habit, which dictates the salutation--an expression of sympathy
in a subject of common and absorbing interest--a sorrowing or rejoicing
with those who sorrow or rejoice in the frowns and smiles of an
ever-changing, ever-influential atmosphere.

If consistent with our purpose, it would be exceedingly interesting to
trace the varied forms of expression in use among different classes and
callings, and see how indicative they are of character and employment.

The sailor deals mainly with the winds of the hour, and to him all the
other phases of the weather are comparatively indifferent. He speaks of
airs, and breezes, and squalls, and gales, and hurricanes; or of such
appearances of the sky as prognosticate them. The citizens, whose lives
are a succession of _days_, deal in such adjectives as characterize the
weather of _the day_, according to their class, or temperament, or
business; and it is pleasant, or fine, or _very_ pleasant or fine;
beautiful, delightful, splendid, or glorious; or unpleasant, rainy,
stormy, dismal, dreadful or horrible. The farmer deals with the weather
of considerable periods; with forward or backward _seasons_, with "cold
snaps" or "hot spells," and "wet spells" or "dry spells." And there are
many in