Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/81

 the bustling world; when the fruit-tree blossoms, pink and white, like village maidens in their Sunday frocks, hide each white-washed cottage in a cloud of fragile splendour; and the cuckoo's note upon the breeze is wafted through the woods! And summer, with its deep, dark green, and drowsy hum—when the rain drops whisper solemn secrets to the listening leaves, and the twilight lingers in the lanes! And autumn! ah, how sadly fair, with its golden glow, and the dying grandeur of its tinted woods—its blood-red sunsets, and its ghostly evening mists, with its busy murmur of reapers, and its laden orchards, and the calling of the gleaners, and the festivals of praise!

The very rain, and sleet, and hail seem only Nature's useful servants, when found doing their simple duties in the country; and the East Wind himself is nothing worse than a boisterous friend, when we meet him between the hedgerows.

But in the city, where the painted stucco blisters under the smoky sun, and the sooty rain brings slush and mud, and the snow lies piled in dirty heaps, and the chill blasts whistle down dingy streets, and shriek round flaring, gas-lit corners, no face of Nature charms us. Weather in towns is like a skylark in a counting house—out of place, and in the way. Towns ought to be covered in, warmed by hot-water pipes, and lighted by electricity. The weather is a country lass, and does not appear to advantage in town. We