lately been enduring? Well,
it was very "trying" for us all, and an even stronger word might be used
by the poor, the aged, and the delicate. Still, let us remember that
without omniscience it is impossible to say whether any given season is
good or bad. So infinitely complex are the relations of things that we
are very bad judges as to what is best for us. How do we know that our
past winter of discontent may not be followed by a glorious summer, and
that the two may not be merely antecedent and consequent, but in some
degree cause and effect?

On no other subject are people so prone to become panegyrists of the
past as in this matter of the weather. "Ah," they say, "we never now
have the lovely summers we used to have." Reading the other day
Walpole's Letters, I discovered that so far from the summers in his day
being "lovely," they were not uniformly better than the winters: "The
way to ensure summer in England," he writes, "is to have it framed and
glazed in a comfortable room." This remark was made of the summer of
1773; that of 1784 was not more balmy, judging from the same writer's
comment: "The month of June, according to custom immemorial, is as cold
as Christmas. I had a fire last night, and all my rosebuds, I believe,
would have been very glad to sit by it."

Here is another weather grumble from the same quaint letter-writer: "The
deluge began here but on Monday last, and then rained nearly
eight-and-forty hours without intermission. My poor bag has not a dry
thread to its back. In short, every summer one lives in a state of
mutiny and murmur, and I have found the reason: it is because we will
affect to have a summer, and have no title to any such thing."

This reminds us of Quin, who, being asked if he had ever seen so bad a
winter, replied: "Yes, just such an one last summer." If people could be
satisfied about the weather, this sort of summer ought to have pleased
the Irishman who, as he warmed his hands at a fire remarked: "What a
pity it is that we can't have the cold weather in the summer."

SERENADE.

"Come out! the moon is white, and on the river
The white mist lies;
The twilight deepens, and the stars grow brighter
In the pure, perfect skies;
The dewy woods with silent voices call you;
Come out, heart of my heart, light of my eyes!

"Come out, for where you are not, beauty is not;
Come out, my Dear!
See how the fairies will adorn the meado