226 LETTERS TO MARCO 



XXXIII 



I also wonder whether any of these ex- 

 perts remark the extraordinary white glare 

 that surrounds the sun, and which has more 

 or less done so since the year 1883. My 

 brother Robert, who is a very keen observer 

 of the heavens, has long noticed this 

 phenomenon, and he wrote to Mr. Ruskin in 

 the winter of 1884 on the subject. 



In London possibly it would not be so 

 easily observed on account of the smoke and 

 small space of sky visible between the tall 

 houses. Town-dwellers, so long as the sun 

 shines, are comparatively independent of the 

 weather, as water-carts lay the dust, green- 

 grocers supply the vegetables, butchers and 

 poulterers the meat, and so on ; importation 

 from abroad, and the vast system of railways, 

 neutralising the effects of local drought. But 

 when you come to live in the country you 

 soon learn to give its true value to every drop 

 of rain, and note with anxiety the entire 

 stoppage to vegetation which spring drought 

 occasions. Here, in Berkshire, this spring, 



