Directly the sun begins to decline, let every maiden and housewife, and man and woman and child, with an eye for the picturesque, and a feeling for health and beauty, throw up the Venetian or Parisian blinds. Open your rooms to the glories of the evening; throw up, and pull down the sashes; open wide all your doors. Let cool breezes enter into corridor and cellar and garret and room; let the ‘caller’ air circulate through every inch of the house hour after hour, whilst you are getting your evening meal, whilst you say your prayers, whilst you think of others after the toils of the day. If it be your priceless lot to dwell apart from city life, and have outside your cottage or villa or mansion, flowers, those lovely gifts of Dame Nature, let scents of rose and thyme come in at every gap in the hedge, at every rift of the wall, at every cranny of the house—scents of rosemary and mignonette, and lavender and bergamot, and lily and elderberry. Welcome the delicate perfume on its cooling, refreshing, healthy mission. It is Hygeia’s gift—a superlative boon for the dog-days.
Strawberries are waiting to be plucked in all the hot months. If we have the possibility of enjoying a holiday, what can be better than a strawberry garden and plenty of cream? whilst larks aloft, and cuckoos in the shade, are singing in the plenitude of their full hearts, and whilst nimble fingers are spreading the white tablecloth on the grass to receive the dainty fruit.
Talk of lotos-eaters—we prefer strawberry gatherers. An old divine said he believed the joys of paradise would consist of eating strawberries to the sounds of a trumpet. We rejoice to think that we can have this transcendental pastime nearer home. We have the strawberries in full force, and there is generally a brass band round the corner to supply, for a small gratuity, the trumpet. Unluckily, doctors have decided that many of us derive no advantage from the strawberry; and alas! and alack-a-day! even claret-cup and champagne and iced cream are occasionally proscribed! When boys, we ate more ices than we could afford; in maturity, we have the pocket-money—without the digestion. A lady in France thought that if strawberry ices were only sinful, no pleasure could exceed that which is to be enjoyed in the consumption of the pleasant fruit. In the eyes of some people, eating strawberries has become almost sinful, so the French lady will be able to satisfy her conscience, perhaps, on that score. Nevertheless, the old parson that Izaak Walton speaks of was right: ‘Certainly, God might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but certainly, God never did.’ So let us enjoy this heaven-sent fruit in the dog-days.
Not that we are at a loss for juicy fruits as long as we have our pine-apples and melons and tomatoes, our peaches and jargonelles, grapes and nectarines, and plums and apricots, a very paradisiacal melange, born of our glorious summer; all which indicates that providence nurtured them for the dog-days that we may eat and be satisfied. We may be sure that the sugar in fruits is modified by other elements, wisely elaborated by a Beneficent chemistry.
After the dog-days comes ‘St Luke’s little summer,’ beginning on the 18th of October and lasting for an octave. Horses and cows feel the heat, dogs whine, and cats show distress, birds sip the morning dew on the leaves for refreshment, even our trees and flowers hang their branches languidly. The Italians twit us by saying that only dogs and Englishmen walk in the sun. Well, it is so little of it we get, that we may be excused if we make the best of it, although we know we may suffer for our imprudence, and go home with colds or neuralgia from too free exposure and rapid cooling. Young dancing and gamboling Sylphs and Cupids in gauze, like so many butterflies in the sunbeams, had better be aware that they may get too much of it, although not often, and we must have an administrative check upon them, so that they do not fly into the heat and scorch their wings.
We are not an eminently sunny people; our fruit has not the rich orange tints of sunnier climes, where warmth is perennial and perpetual; and then dog-days come at last, and we go out to bask like lizards amongst the sand of our shores, or to splash amongst salt water at our bathing resorts. Our hot days ought to be an enjoyment, which they would be if we prepared ourselves for them and attended to the changes of temperature. We are not to throw off all our wraps in one grand effort to be free, still less to court chills by foolishly hanging about damp places merely to get cool, and losing our animal heat quicker than we can replace it. Hygeia is the last person in the world to tolerate such errors. She requires us to use common-sense, and not to use an erroneous dietary; and if we obeyed her implicitly, our summers would leave us not so relaxed and overdone and dull and full of languor as they often do. If we will have heating food and heavy raiment, we resist the precepts of Hygeia, and we shall fail to win her smile when she draws the curtain for the season.
We must not tempt malaria by walking too late in dewy grass, when the moon is up, and all nature looks bright and beautiful, and only the nightingale sings or the willow-wren warbles amongst the osiers. We may stay out too late, by way of getting cool, until we get quite hot, and feverish with a cough that won’t let us sleep; and as blackbirds and thrushes call upon us with dulcet notes about three o’clock A.M., we cannot answer the polite and musical invitation, if our throats suffer from the evening fog.
Young folk will pardon this dog-day talk, as it perhaps may benefit them. It is very pleasant to see them enjoying themselves, wild with the shimmering sunshine. We were all young once, ‘before Decay’s effacing fingers had swept the lines where beauty lingers,’ and before rheumatism caught us in its horrible grip. Long may they enjoy themselves—and ourselves too enjoy our rollicking fun and nonsense amongst wild-birds and flowers and hayricks, amongst the scents of new-mown hay and clover and bean fields. What a lot of joy middle-aged people have to renounce, and yet we can still appreciate our dog-days!
An old proverb says, ‘Every dog has his day;’ but there are only forty dog-days in the calendar according to modern almanacs. They begin on the 3d of July, and end on the 11th of August. Bailey, the dictionary-maker of 1755, says the dog-days are ‘certain days in July and August, commonly from the 24th of the former to the 28th of the latter, so called from the star Canis or Dog-star, which then rises and sets with the sun, and greatly increases the heat.’ This was published three years after the introduction of new style, which took the place of old style in 1752. Another authority, more recent, says: ‘The canicular or dog-days denote a certain number of days preceding and ensuing the heliacal rising of the Canicula or the Dog-star in the morning. Almanac-makers usually mark the beginning of the dog-days from about the end of July, and end them about their first week in September.’ Most people are accustomed to connect these days with mad dogs and hydrophobia generally, and they begin to think of M. Pasteur and his experiments at such times. There is evident confusion as to the time they begin and end. One thing is plain—they indicate the hotter portion of our year: some of them are so hot that we perspire if we stand still, though an Arab would freeze. What are we to do at such times? Simply, let us sit quietly if we can, and enjoy our siesta in a rather darkened room, with a pretty girl at the piano to sing for us, whilst we have our ‘hubble-bubble’ and rose-water or fragrant cigar and a pleasant book, till the cool of the evening. A considerable number of the dog-days are anything but hot; they are dashed by rain, as picnic parties know to their sorrow. St Swithin, of pluvial notoriety, bids us put up our umbrellas on the 15th of July, whilst he assuages the heat, and acts the part of Aquarius for the good of the world, spoiling all the custards and junkets and cheese-cakes, and taking out the stiffening of the ladies’ curls and collars in a remarkably disagreeable manner, by a sudden downpour, that often continues for many hours together. What an ungallant, heartless, and stingy old saint he must be!