En Sntfcfpatfon. 23 



east. I have wondered why the east wind 

 should be so unkind, coming, as it does, from 

 lands sentient \vith sunshine and steeped in 

 tropic warmth. A wind like Ruskin's " plague- 

 wind, made of dead men's souls such of them 

 as are not gone yet where they have to go, and 

 may be flitting hither and thither, doubting 

 themselves of the fittest place for them." I find 

 the east wind has been grossly maligned ; it is 

 the west wind that bears the venom of Boreas and 

 the stratus-cloud in its icy breath, surging on an 

 upper current of the atmosphere, and coming 

 only in appearance from the east on a counter 

 under-current of air. The Rocky Mountains are 

 the real seat of the dreaded " easterly " storm, 

 and they not the east wind deserve our strict- 

 ures. 



In point of viciousness and duration the pres- 

 ent equinox exceeds any other I have known. 

 The chanticleer on my neighbor's house-top has 

 been whisking seemingly from each point of the 

 compass at once ; and every variety of weather, 

 from an east wind bitter as quassia to the most 

 brutal of westerly blizzards, has raged unremit- 

 tingly for six days. I defy even Sir Admiral 

 Fitzroy to forecast the weather from so hetero- 

 geneous a horoscope a combination of winds 

 that has blown evil to me and good to my al- 



