10 



WINTER SUNSHINE. 



a stronger infusion of the Indian Summer element 

 throughout the year, than is found farther north. The 

 days are softer and more brooding, and the nights more 

 enchanting. It is here that Walt Whitman saw the 

 full moon 



" Pour down Night's nimbus floods," 



as any one may see her, during her full, from October 

 to May. There is more haze and vapor in the atmos- 

 phere during that period, and every particle seems to 

 collect and hold the pure radiance until the world 

 swims with the lunar outpouring. Is not the full moon 

 always on the side of fair weather ? I think it is Sir 

 William Herschell who says her influence tends to dis- 

 pel the clouds. Certain it is her beauty is seldom 

 lost or even veiled in this southern or semi-southern 

 clime. 



It is here also the poet speaks of the 



" Floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, 

 Indolent sinking sun, burning, expanding the air," 



a description that would not apply with the same force 

 farther north, where the air seems thinner and less 

 capable of absorbing and holding the sunlight. In-* 

 deed, the opulence and splendor of our climate, at 

 least the climate of our Atlantic sea-board, cannot be 

 fully appreciated by the dweller north of the thirty-ninth 

 parallel. It seemed as if I had never seen but a sec- 

 ond-rate article of sunlight or moonlight until I had 

 taken up my abode in the National Capital, It may 



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