CHAPTER X 



MILORD THE WEATHER 



MY old-fashioned, half-centuried, beloved dic- 

 tionary defines weather as " The state of the 

 atmosphere with respect to heat, cold, dryness, 

 moisture, wind, rain, snow, fog, etc." When I com- 

 pare Nonsuch with New York City I realize that 

 it is the weather which makes the most important 

 difference and I believe it is the most difficult to 

 write anything about. Instead of streets and houses 

 and automobiles and people, I look out on sky and 

 clouds and sunshine and sea and rocks and trees — 

 and having thus listed the differences I find I have 

 omitted weather. The most important atmosphere 

 has been left out, perhaps because of its invisibility. 

 Weather is almost as personal a thing as rain- 

 bows, and we are bound by human sensations to reel 

 forth words and sentences of how " I " feel under 

 this or that condition. There is no help for it, we 

 must make comparisons : 



** And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu, 

 And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban." 



which is nothing compared with what you think of 

 hot weather and what I think of hot weather, or 

 how we individually react to a day of storm-driven 



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