The Season.
“Now” in this month, as in the month of July, and as, for example, in June, 1826, “we occasionally have one of those sultry days which make the house too hot to hold us, and force us to seek shelter in the open air, which is hotter;—when the interior of the blacksmith’s shop looks awful, and we expect the foaming porter pot to hiss, as the brawny forger dips his fiery nose into it;—when the birds sit open-mouthed upon the bushes; and the fishes fry in the shallow ponds; and the sheep and cattle congregate together in the shade, and forget to eat;—when pedestrians along dusty roads quarrel with their coats and waistcoats, and cut sticks to carry them across their shoulders; and cottagers’s wives go about their work gown-less; and their daughters are anxious to do the same, but that they have the fear of the vicar before their eyes;—when every thing seen beyond a piece of parched soil quivers through the heated air; and when, finally, a snow-white swan, floating above its own image, upon a piece of clear cool water into which a weeping-willow is dipping its green fingers, is a sight not to be turned from suddenly.”[230]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 60·15.
[228] Miss Plumptre.
[229] General Biographical Dictionary, vol. 1.
[230] Mirror of the Months.