WINTER SUNSHINE. 



A N American resident in England is reported as 

 saying that the English have an atmosphere but 

 no climate. The reverse of this remark would apply 

 pretty accurately to our own case. We certainly have 

 a climate, a two-edged one that cuts both ways, threat- 

 ening 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 fitful and 

 uncertain Indian Summer. An atmosphere, the quality 

 of tone and mellowness in the near distance, is the 

 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 

 latter 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 ; 

 the horizon wall does not so often have the appear- 

 ance of having just been washed and scrubbed down. 

 There is more depth and visibility to the open air, 



