Some people say the rain is monotonous. Ignorant idiots! Let them apply that epithet to the sun, but the rain—monotonous? Bah! Could anybody adduce anything more varied and agreeable than rain? Clouds, mists, dew, hail, drizzle, showers, snow-storms ... what a charming mosaic of precious things!
Is there a more sublime spectacle than a shower? ... especially when contemplated from behind a well-glazed window? When the cataracts of heaven are opened on Sundays, it is worth while hiring a balcony in the Puerta del Sol. Those who have been so imprudent as to sally out without their wife and umbrella, recognise the advantage of the latter article over the former. But what a pleasing sight is the picturesque group of a married pair and their little children under the protection of one umbrella! And when the crystalline rain is accompanied by a strong soester, which the most impermeable of taffety cannot resist—that boisterous blast which removes hats and wigs ... oh, then the respectable couple who have issued forth to air their Sunday-best present a marvellous and really romantic spectacle. The husband, fearful for his precious umbrella abandons the arm of his better-half, and presses his feet firmly to the ground to save the article in question, for the wind has turned it inside out like a stocking, and seems desirous of snatching it from his hands, in the same way that it has whirled off his hat just as a flower-pot falls from one of the houses and smashes his skull. The modest spouse pays no attention either to her husband’s catastrophe, or to the gusts or downpour, but thinks only of her angelical prudicity, and how she may best avoid making a display of her person, for the wind against which she is struggling marks out all her contour, seeming to take a pleasure in exposing to the spectators the most hidden curves of his victim.
But I should never end if I gave a minute description of all the fascinations of my favourite season. I have said enough about the beauties of rain. In another article I hope to illustrate the pleasures of the cold, the charm of chilblains, and particularly all tha heroic in cerebral rheums, fully persuaded that once the reasons upon which I base my opinions are read, all my readers will agree with me that there is nothing to be compared with the delights of winter.
Wenceslao Ayguals de Izco.
IN THE EARLIER DAYS OF PHOTOGRAPHY.
“I tell you it’s not good at all,” vociferated a newly-elected parliamentary representative of some rural locality. “Why my constituency would recognise me in that portrait. It’s detestable!”
“It’s excellent!” replied the exasperated photographer. “There’s not a better photographer than myself in Madrid.”
“I do doubt it; but it’s clear you have not been successful with me.”
“But what’s the matter with it?”
“The matter?... Look at me!... Have I two eyes?”