WINTER SUNSHINE 



WINTER SUNSHINE 



A N American resident in England is reported as 

 -^^^ saying tliat the English have an atmosphere 

 but no climate. The reverse of this remark would 

 apply pretty accurately to our own case. We cer- 

 tainly have a climate, a two-edged one that cuts 

 both ways, threatening us with sun-stroke on the 

 one hand and with frost-stroke on the other; but 

 we have no atmosphere to speak of in New York 

 and New England, except now and then during the 

 dog-days, or the iitful and uncertain Indian Sum- 

 mer. An atmosphere, the quality of tone and mel- 

 lowness in the near distance, is ^he product of a 

 more humid climate. Hence, as we go south from 

 New York, the atmospheric effects become more 

 rich and varied, until on reaching the Potomac you 

 find an atmosphere as well as a climate. The lat- 

 ter is still on the vehement American scale, full of 

 sharp and violent changes and contrasts, baking and 

 blistering in summer, and nipping and blighting in 

 winter, but the spaces are not so purged and bare; 



