The clerk throws this epistle into the Balaam box and listlessly draws out another. "Don't you think," the writer says, "that a blink of sunshine would be a blessing—and a drop or two of warm rain to bring the fruit on, and the garden stuff? What is the good of having a Clerk of the Weather at all if he cannot attend better to his duties?"
That letter is also pitched into the Balaam box, and a third drawn—a delightful little cocked-hat of a letter, written on delicately-perfumed paper, probably with a dove's quill. She—of course it is a she!—is going to a garden-party on Tuesday week; would he, the Clerk of the Weather, kindly see that not a drop of rain falls on that day? Only bright sunshine, and occasional cloudlets to act as awnings and temper its heat.
The Clerk with a smile places that letter aside for further consideration, and goes on drawing. All and everyone of them either demand impossibilities or merely write to abuse the poor Clerk for some fancied dereliction of duty. One wants rain, another growls because there has been too much wet. This one is grumbling at the fogs, this other at the sunshine; this one suggests snow for a change, and this other begs for a thunderstorm to clear the atmosphere.
And so on and so forth. No wonder the bewildered Clerk jumps up at last and over-turns the table, letters and all, and audibly expresses a desire to let all the winds loose upon the world at once, to revel and tear and do as they like, to bring blinding snow from the far north and drenching rains from the torrid zone, to order a select assortment of thunderstorms from the Cape of Good Hope, and a healthy tornado from the Indian Ocean. But he thinks better of it, burns all the letters, and goes quietly on with his day's duty.
We see, then, that no matter what state of body of mind we may be in, we cannot get weather to order. We really commit an error, if nothing worse, in asking for weather to suit us.
We cannot alter our climate. December and January will bring their frosts and snows without asking our permission; easterly or nor'-easterly winds will prevail in the spring months; March will bluster, April will weep; May will smile through her tears by day and freeze us with her frosts at night, and July will stupefy us with thunderstorms, and August scorch us with heat one day and drench us to the skin the next.
Now I am happy to say that a very large percentage of the readers of The Girl's Own Paper are so healthy in lungs and in nerves, and so stout-hearted and strong-limbed, that it is, as a rule, a matter of entire indifference to them how the wind blows or how the weather is. But all are not so, and it will seem a matter of surprise for the really robust to be told that many girls are so delicately constituted that they actually can tell if the wind is from the east before they draw the blind and look out. It is for this section of our girls that I am writing to-day. They may not be invalids, but may simply labour under a great susceptibility to atmospheric changes.
Such as these will be glad to be told that there is every possibility of their growing out of this disagreeable susceptibility, much depending upon how they use and treat themselves when young. Spring winds are very hard upon those who are subject to chest or throat irritation—in other words, to common colds—and I must take this opportunity of entreating girls of this class never to neglect a cold. Why? Because one cold on top of another, as the saying is, will certainly result in the end in thickening of the delicate mucous membrane that lines the lungs, and if this takes place you may look forward to being in time a confirmed invalid the greater part of the year through winter cough.
It is not a very difficult thing to get clear of a cold if taken in time. Confinement to the house for a day, or even two, a lowered diet, a mixture of the solution of acetate of ammonia and spirits of sweet nitre the first day, some aperient medicine and an ordinary cough mixture the second or third day, warmer clothing and avoidance of exposure to high winds; this treatment will be found successful in nine cases out of ten.
Sudden changes in temperature are apt to induce illness in the delicate. Mild weather may have prevailed for some days, when all at once the wind veers round to the north-east and at the same time it blows high. Exposure to weather of this kind may induce whatsoever kind of ailment an individual is subject to.