The passions and the cares that wither life,
And waste its little hour.”
BRYANT.
Sunday, Nov. 29. Two Californians called upon me to-day, to decide a difficulty which had arisen between them in some money transactions. I told them to call on some week-day—that I attended to no business matters on the Sabbath. They apologized for interfering with my recreations; I told them I had no recreations to be disturbed, but I would not open my office for business on the Sabbath. Had I told them I was going to a cock-fight, their only wonder would have been that they had not heard of the sport; and both would have forgotten their business in hunting their cash for the ring. Such is the moral obtuseness which a perversion of the Sabbath induces. The heart on which the dews of this sacred morn have never melted, will be desolate of moral verdure; though here and there a leaf may spring like flowers in the cleft of a rock.
Monday, Nov. 30. We have had at last a true specimen of California showers. The wind blew a gale from the south. Cloud on cloud was piled into the zenith, till the whole dome of heaven was filled with substantial darkness. The earth lay in an eclipse. A few heavy rolls of thunder, and the rain fell in torrents; it lasted twelve hours. Every roof and frowning cliff became a cascade. Down each ravine rolled an exulting tide. The aquatic bird dashed onward in its foam to the sea. Suddenly the wind veered into the west, and in a few moments the sky was without a cloud. Field and forest flashed out in the splendors of the sun; and on the soft wind came gushes of music from the wild-wood. Instead of bleak November, you would have said:
“Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May;
The tresses of the woods
With the light dallying of the west wind play
And the full briming floods,
As gladly to their goal they run,