Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1889-03-21
GAN Hamilton On Comfort.

Tor me, It's climate. The most patriot
Sc have usually fought shy of American
weather. Il few June days have risen
like Islands OF the Blessed above the
weller Of wind and sun 20 be celebrated
in poetry and romance. But ordinari-
ly, though we have cherished, and per-
haps, in momentary lapses of modesty.
have eulogized our institutions, we
have been fain TO admit that the mer-
curry does run low on Minnesota Their
mometer, and could only plead in miti
cation that IL Is very dry cold! Not
even that plea could prevail in extenu-
alton of "a Boston east wind TO which
the sternest Puritan would gladly pay
the rheum Of few tears, and pass on.
Ia this brilliant midwinter afternoon,
one would like TO know the reason why!
The low sun shines softly yelled in n
golden haze, not the working farm
hand of Earths busy summer, hut the
serene spirit of brightness and beauty,
OF leisure and repOse, touching to adorn,
and not strenuous to fructify. The
MerTimac is MS placid rs the Arno, and
/ how much more beautiful! Winding
with bold, free curves and broad
sweeps, widening int lakes and mar
rowing into currents, blue bays rip
! pling on silver beaches. and leaping up
moss green rocks, many q procession
! OF the pines crowdinG down the steep
| banks 10 lend their solemn chant to the
wind-swept water, and over all the ten
| derest warm sky, bending above wood
and wave. and slumber-sweet hills and
| brown, still fields sloping TO the very
! blue depths biim-ho must seek far
who would find nature in a lovelier
trance Of rest, n rapt. ecstatic waiting.
i mind me OF another winter than
this, under the re-sung and be-sonneted
Italian heavens. 1t must be England
that has given the keynote of that
music, and for England it may ring
| true. Against the sour, sour skies of
that most magnificent little island
| Italy may shine out as Winter Para
disc of Dainty Delights, but the Amer
! lean Eagle, clasping his wings closest.
with resoiute as well as native diff
dence 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 tho braziers of Milan. The
peaks of Alp shine far off, purpling-
pink in the dawn and sunset, silver
splendid and dazzling at high noon,
hints Of heaven always, spirit wise and
mystical. But the Milanese are chill
ed TO the heart. For weeks and end
less weeks the sun never gives out
straightforward, cordial ray. HIS most
and best is TO filter, faint and ye'lowish
gray, through damp, frozen atmos-
phere-a 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
lies 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 per-
! suaded that only an artificial galvanized
life or action can be left you in Bologna.
A9 the heat the sun can give must be
absorbed by those gloomy, broken, un-
slightly snow-heaps.
Down to fair Florence come the bit
ter winds OF the Apenuines hooking the
sun, the Rome su!ks in the cold damps
of her lowlands, her wide malarial
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 q
real greeting from the sun.
And most unfortunately the United
Kingdom of Italy, sighted by the sun,
does not know how 10 warm herself
Never while life lasts may hear one
word more about the over-heate1
houses of America. The under-heated
houses OF Europe not only threaten the
extinction of existence, but make it
intolerable while it endures. Three
quarters Of ones long-hoarded time is
sacrificed in Italy to the memorable
cold.
There are the glorious galleries Of
Florence-Florence whose very name
is the blossoming OF the world Flor
ence shrined in her genius of genera
tons, over-packed with her priceless
treasures broken perishing, more price
less still for that; treasures abandoned
to her chance guardianship by the re-
ceding tide of q vanished time. One
stands at first bewildered, distraught,
dumb, In the very presence of the I'M
mOrtalS. III is the pavement OF Dante
that you tread. 1t is the cloister OF
Fra Angelica. 1t is the Piazza where
Savonarola triumphed. 1t is the touch
and Tower OF Calico. In those gar
dens walked Michael Angelo. In this
twilight chapel Raphael studied the
free frescoes of Masaccio and Masaccio
gathered the wise ways OF nature from
Gilbert, is Gates on the open highway.
and Ghiberti sat at the feet OF Giotto's
new-found truth, whom Cimabue comes
out of the centuried dusk TO summer
from his bright mountain side. They
are all here-the great ones, Majores
and Minores-eager to be entreated,
friendly TO the feeblest If sincere
search-and the summer crowds are
not here. No tourist jostles between
you and the light. You have Florence
to yourself and the long, sweet solitary
hours OF promise with the Immortals.
And alas! alas! you are mortal-and
therefore you are cold.
The deadly rgor OF those stone
| floors, those unsunned corridors, those