ce of some such general theory--in a
word, that all sour persons might be housed together for their
employment and society be rid of them. It is by an extension of this
obscure but beneficent division that only those of better nature go
abroad on these blustering November days.

There are many persons, of course, who like summer rains and boast of
their liking. This is nothing. One might as well boast of his appetite
for toasted cheese. Does one pin himself with badges if he plies an
enthusiastic spoon in an ice-cream dish? Or was the love of sack ever
a virtue, and has Falstaff become a saint? If he now sing in the Upper
Choir, the bench must sag. But persons of this turn of argument make a
point of their willingness to walk out in a June rain. They think it a
merit to go tripping across the damp grass to inspect their gardens.
Toasted cheese! Of course they like it. Who could help it? This is no
proof of merit. Such folk, at best, are but sisters in the
brotherhood.

And yet a November rain is but an August rain that has grown a beard
and taken on the stalwart manners of the world. And the November wind,
which piped madrigals in June and lazy melodies all the summer, has
done no more than learn brisker braver tunes to befit the coming
winter. If the wind tugs at your coat-tails, it only seeks a companion
for its games. It goes forth whistling for honest celebration, and who
shall begrudge it here and there a chimney if it topple it in sport?

Despite this, rainy weather has a bad name. So general is its evil
reputation that from of old one of the lowest circles of Hell has been
plagued with raw winds and covered thick with ooze--a testament to our
northern March--and in this villains were set shivering to their
chins. But the beginning of the distaste for rainy weather may be
traced to Noah. Certain it is that toward the end of his cruise, when
the passengers were already chafing with the animals--the kangaroos,
in particular, it is said, played leap-frog in the hold and disturbed
the skipper's sleep--certain it is while the heavens were still
overcast that Noah each morning put his head anxiously up through the
forward hatch for a change of sky. There was rejoicing from stem to
stern--so runs the legend--when at last his old white beard, shifting
from west to east, gave promise of a clearing wind. But from that day
to this, as is natural, there has persisted a stout prejudice against
wind and rain.

But this is