The Arkansaw traveler. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1882-1???, 1889-02-02
GAIL HAMILTON ON COMFORT.

The great discovery of America is, for me- its
climate. The most patriotic have usually fought
shy of American weather. few June days have
risen like Islands of the Blessed above the weller
of wind and sun to be celebrated in poetry and
romance But ordinarily, though we have cher
ished, and perhaps, in mOmentary. lapses of mod
esty, have eulogzed our institutions, have been
fain TO admit that the mercury does low on a
Minnesota thermometer, and could only plead in
mitigation that it is a very dry cold Not even
that plea could prevail in extenuation of Boston
east wind TO which the sternest Puritan would
gladly pay the rheum of few tears, and pass on
In this brilliant midwinter afternoon, one would
like to know the reason why The low sun shines
softly yelled in golden haze. not the working
farm hand of Earths busy summer but the serene
Spirit of brightness and beauty, of leisure and
repose touching to adOrn, and not strenuous to
fructify The Merrimac is as placid as the Arno
and how much more beautiful Winding with
bold, free curves and broad sweeps, widening into
lakes and narrowing into currents, blue bays rip
pling on silver beaches, and leaping up moss green
rocks, many a procession of the pines crowding
down the steep banks TO lend their solemn chant to
the wind-swept water, and over all the tenderest
sky, bending above wood and wave and
sumber-swee hills and brown still fields sloping
TO the very blue depths brim-he must seek far
who would find nature in loveer trance of rest
a rapt, ecstatc waiting.
mind me of another winter than this under the
be-sung and be-sonneted Italian heavens Ii must
be England that has given the keynote of that
the dour, skies of that most magnificent little
island Italy may shine out as a Winter Paradise of
Dainty Delights, but the American Eagle clasp
ing his wings closest, with resOlute as we'll IS
native dihdence must maintain that the north side
OF an AroostoOk snow bank offers every climatic
attraction for winter residence, compared with the
cities of Italy. A Marblehead fisherman would
perish at the brazers of Milan. The peaks of Alp
shine far off, purpling- pink in the dawn and sun
set, splendid and dazzling high noon hints
q heaven alWaVs an6u ystic Rut
the Milanese are chilled to the heart. For weeks
and endless weeks the sun never gives out a
Straightforward cordial ray. His most and best is
to filter, faint and yellowish gray, through damp,
frozen atmospheric deadly fog that depresses the
flesh and discOurages the soul. The narrow arcaded
streets of Bologna give up the struggle and the
shaded courts are hopeless dark wells Of snow 1t
lie, heaped up in the public squares and as you
stand benumbed before the marble Galvani and his
marble frog in the Piazza Galvani, you are easily
persuaded that only artificial galvanized life or
action can be left you in Bologna. All the heat
the sun can give must be absorbed by those gloomy
broken, unsghtly snow heaps.
Down to fair Florence come the bitter winds of
the Apennnes hooking the sun, and Rome sulks in
the cold damps of her lowlands, her wide malaral
marshes, her humid and dripping skies, her
upturned, indignant earth. 1t is not till one
reaches Naples that one feels a thrill of Natures
warmth and a real greeting from the sun.
And most unfortunately the United Kingdom OF
Italy, sighted by the sun, does not know how to
warm herself. Never while life lasts may hear
one word more about the over-heated houses of
America The under heated houses of Europe not
only threaten the extinction of existence but make
1t intolerabe while it endures. Three-quarters OF
ones long boarded time is sacrificed in Italy to the
memorable cold.
There are the glorious galleries of Florence
Florence whose very name is the blossomng of the
world Florence shrined in her genius of genera
lions, over-packed with her priceless treasures
broken perishing, more priceless still for that