34 Outlook to Nature 



in the natural surroundings, is the weather. 

 Every day of our lives, on land or sea, whether 

 we will or no, the air and the clouds and the 

 sky environ us. So variable in this environ- 

 ment, from morning till evening and from 

 evening till morning and from season to season, 

 that we are always conscious of it. It is to the 

 changes in this environment that we apply the 

 folk-word "weather," weather, that is akin 

 to wind. 



No man is efficient who is at cross-purposes 

 with the main currents of his life ; no man is 

 content and happy who is out of sympathy with 

 the environment in which he is born to live : 

 so the habit of grumbling at the weather is the 

 most senseless and futile of all expenditures of 

 human effort. Day by day we complain and 

 fret at the weather, and when we are done with 

 it we have the weather. The same amount 

 of energy put into wholesome work would have 

 set civilization far in advance of its present 

 state. Weather is not a human institution, and 

 therefore it cannot be " bad." I have seen 

 bad men, have read bad books, have made bad 



