TOUCHES OF NATURE 55 



grain at this season have iDecome hard. The timothy 

 stalk is like a file ; the rye straw is glazed with flint ; 

 the grasshoppers snap sharply as they fly up in front 

 of you; the bird-songs have ceased; the ground 

 crackles under foot; the eye of day is brassy and 

 merciless; and in harmony with all these things is 

 the rattle of the mower and hay-tedder. 



IX 



'T is an evidence of how directly we are related 

 to Nature, that we more or less sympathize with the 

 weather, and take on the color of the day. Goethe 

 said he worked easiest on a high barometer. One 

 is like a chimney that draws well some days and 

 won't draw at all on others, and the secret is mainly 

 in the condition of the atmosphere. Anything posi- 

 tive and decided with the weather is a good omen. 

 A pouring rain may be more auspicious than a sleep- 

 ing sunshine. When the stove draws well, the fogs 

 and fumes will leave your mind. 



I find there is great virtue in the bare ground, 

 and have been much put out at times by those white 

 angelic days we have in winter, such as Whittier 

 has so well described in these lines : — 



" Around the glistening wonder bent 

 The Hue walls of the firmament; 

 No cloud above, no earth below, 

 A universe of sky and snow." 



On such days my spirit gets snow-blind; all 

 things take on the same color, or no color; my 

 thought loses its perspective; the inner world is a 



