ABOUT THE WEATHER. 109 



else set him down as a man of abnormally insensible 

 nerves. Nay, perhaps there is a tone of mind for every 

 shade of alteration in the weather, which may be discovered 

 by its influence on the nerves, on those objects with which 

 it is so continually in hostile contact. Our ancestors knew 

 and named a " joy-month" (May), and in England, 

 November is called " the month of fog, misanthropy, 

 and suicide." It is a fact that most suicides happen there 

 in this month. Frommond relates that when the south- 

 wind blows, in the Azores, the inhabitants walk about 

 with the head bent down, and even the children sit sad 

 at home instead of playing in the streets. Sanctorius 

 remarked that all men feel duller in damp, cloudy 

 weather; and Unzer held that both the sick and healthy 

 are always better when the barometer is high. So early 

 as Hippocrates, we find it noticed that damp Springs are 

 followed by violent epidemic fevers, and it is believed on 

 all sea-coasts, that the greatest number of persons die 

 when the moon is at 90 from its culmination, that is 

 at the time of the ebb. I do not bring these matters 

 forward in the belief that the facts themselves are all 

 beyond doubt, but merely to show how generally diffused 

 is the conviction that the well-being of man is dependant 

 on the weather. When we are upon a high mountain, 

 clouds, rain and all disturbances of the weather often 

 lie far below us, and so may they who move foremost 

 among men, the rulers of nations and the great stand, 

 less interfered with by the changes of the weather ; but 

 in the lower regions, all the weal and woe of life hangs 

 upon rain and sunshine. Let us go, for a moment, along 

 with Le Sage's Asmodeus, and peep into the interior of 

 the houses ; here abides the loving wife ; she hastens 

 joyfully to meet her husband on his return, and is sullenly 



